___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Verbal Paired Associates Learning Task ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com) for Millisecond Software, LLC Date: 08-22-2018 last updated: 10-04-2024 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com) for Millisecond Software, LLC Script Copyright © 10-04-2024 Millisecond Software ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ BACKGROUND INFO ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This script implements a basic computer-adapted Paired Associates Learning Task inspired by the one used by the Wechsler Memory Scale, Fourth Edition (Wechsler, 2009) Verbal Paired Associates I & II as summarized in: Thiruselvam, I., Vogt, E.M, & James B. Hoelzle, J.B. (2015). The Interchangeability of CVLT-II and WMS-IV Verbal Paired Associates Scores: A Slightly Different Story. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 30, 248–255. The script presents the list visually and accepts written input. Adjustments to z-scores as described by: Gregg, A. & Sedikides, C. (2010). Narcissistic Fragility: Rethinking Its Links to Explicit and Implicit Self-esteem, Self and Identity, 9:2, 142-161 (p.148) ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ TASK DESCRIPTION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Participants are presented a list of 14 word pairs (fixed sequence), one word pair at a time, on the computer screen. Once the list has finished, the first word of each word pair is presented as a prompt together with a textbox. Participants are asked to enter the missing second word of the word pair into the box. Feedback is provided during the immediate recall trials. The list learning/recall task is repeated 3 more times before a break (default: 15min). After the break, participants work through an optional delayed recall test (no feedback provided) and a recognition task: 28 words are presented to them, one by one, and participants have to decide whether the word was part of the original list (if so, press Y) or not (if so, press N). 14 of the words are list words, the other ones are new distractor words. The test ends with an optional free recall test of the original list word pairs. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DURATION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Recall 1-4: ~10minutes Break: ~20 minutes Delayed Recall: ~3 minutes Delayed Recognition: ~2 minutes Delayed Free Recall: ~2 minutes ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DATA OUTPUT DICTIONARY ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The fields in the data files are: (1) Raw data file: 'verbalpairedassociatestest_raw*.iqdat' (a separate file for each participant)* build: The specific Inquisit version used (the 'build') that was run computer.platform: the platform the script was run on (win/mac/ios/android) date, time: date and time script was run subject, group: with the current subject/groupnumber session: with the current session id blockCode, blockNum: the name and number of the current block (built-in Inquisit variable) trialCode, trialNum: the name and number of the currently recorded trial (built-in Inquisit variable) Note: trialNum is a built-in Inquisit variable; it counts all trials run; even those that do not store data to the data file such as feedback trials. Thus, trialNum may not reflect the number of main trials run per block. countImmediateRecallRounds: counts the number of immediate cued-recall trials run countAllRecallRounds: counts the number of ALL (immediate + delayed) cued-recall trials run familiarity: 1 = old word (word on list); 0 = new word (during recognition) pairassociation: 1 = strong association between the words of a pair; 2 = weak association between the words of a pair firstWord: the first presented stimuli in order of trial presentation secondWord: the second presented stimuli in order of trial presentation (for recognition test) correctResp: the correct response recall: the correct 2nd word recognition: scancode of correct response key (21 = Y (old), 49 = N (new)) response: the participant's response recall trials: textbox input recognition trial: 21=Y (old); 49 = N (new) correct: the correctness of the response (1 = correct; 0 = incorrect) latency: the response latency (in ms); measured from recall: onset of textbox until submit recognition: onset of word pair until response button is hit recall: stores the recall text input (with single commas to separate the different words) per recall round countCorrectRecall: tracks the number of correctly recalled words per recall round (resets after each round) word1Recall- word14Recall: stores the number of times each of the 14 words has been recalled across the four immediate cued-recall rounds Note: * numbers refer to the itemnumber of the word in item.wordsB * for a sequential presentation of words during list learning, the itemnumber would also refer to the position of the word in the presented list (the default presentation order is randomized) intrusions: a storage variable that stores all recall intrusion words across the 4 immediate (+ delayed) cued-recall trials Note: check for misspelled words here and adjust scores accordingly recognitionScore: the number of words correctly identified (Max: 28); Note: combines 'hits' and 'correct rejections' delayedFreeRecallRecalledWords:stores the words entered for the free recall trial FreeRecallWordEstimate,: stores the computer-derived estimate of the number of words recalled in the free recall trial Note: Algorithm does not check whether the recalled words are actual words. countCorrectFreeRecall: tracks the number of correctly recalled words for the free recall trial countCorrectFreeRecallA: tracks the number of correctly recalled words A for the free recall trial countCorrectFreeRecallB: tracks the number of correctly recalled words B for the free recall trial countCorrectFreeRecallPairs: tracks the number of correctly recalled complete word pairs for the free recall trial nrOtherFreeRecalledWords: stores the number of words not from the word pair list recalled during the free recall trial (based on FreeRecallEstimate) nrRecogIntrusions: stores the number of new words from the recognition test that were recalled during the free recall trial freeRecallIntrusions: stores all the words entered during the free recall trial that were not part of the list (2) Summary data file: 'verbalpairedassociatestest_summary*.iqdat' (a separate file for each participant)* inquisit.version: Inquisit version run computer.platform: the platform the script was run on (win/mac/ios/android) startDate: date script was run startTime: time script was started subjectId: assigned subject id number groupId: assigned group id number sessionId: assigned session id number elapsedTime: time it took to run script (in ms); measured from onset to offset of script completed: 0 = script was not completed (prematurely aborted); 1 = script was completed (all conditions run) recallScore: sum of all correctly recalled items (wordsB) across the 4 IMMEDIATE cued-recall rounds (Max: 56) delayedRecallScore: number of correctly recalled items (words B) during delayed cued-recall (Max: 14) recognitionScore: the number of words correctly identified (Max: 28); Note: combines 'hits' and 'correct rejections' freeRecallScore: the number of correctly recalled word pairs from original list (max. 14) during free recall Note: both words of a pair have to be entered (but not necessarily in order) immediate Recall: meanRecall: mean of the estimated number of words recalled (IMMEDIATE RECALL only)- independent of recall accuracy meanRecall: mean number of correctly recalled words per list (IMMEDIATE RECALL only) recall1: proportion correctly recalled words during immediate recall round 1 recall2: proportion correctly recalled words during immediate recall round 2 recall3: proportion correctly recalled words during immediate recall round 3 recall4: proportion correctly recalled words during immediate recall round 4 propWord1Recall- propWord14Recall: stores the recall proportion of each 14 words across the number of IMMEDIATE recall rounds (Max: 4/4 for each item) Notes: * numbers refer to the itemnumber of the word in item.wordsB * for a sequential presentation of words during list learning, the itemnumber would also refer to the position of the word in the presented list (the default presentation order is randomized) Example: word 1(here: market) => market was remembered x out of 4 times during immediate recall round1RecalledWords- round4RecalledWords: stores the list of the recalled words for round1, round2, round3, round4 (IMMEDIATE RECALL) delayedRecallRecalledWords: stores the list of the recalled words for the delayed recall rounds (IMMEDIATE + DELAYED RECALL, not free recall) intrusions: a storage variable that stores all recall intrusion words across the 4 immediate (+ delayed) recall rounds Note: check for misspelled words here and adjust scores accordingly //Recognition: rHitsRecognition: hit rate during recognition (hit => participant categorized old word as 'old') rMissesRecognition: miss rate during recognition (miss => participant categorized old words as 'new') rFAsRecognition: false alarm rate during recognition (false alarm => participant categorized new word as 'old') rCRsRecognition: correct rejection rate (cr => participant categorized new word as 'new') Note: z-score calculations: adjustments (see Gregg & Sedikides, 2010, p.148) If the hit rate / FA rate is 0 => 0.005 is used instead (aka 0.005 is added to the hit/FA rate) IF the hit rate / FA rate is 1.0 => 0.995 is used instead (aka 0.005 is subtracted from the hit/FA rate) zHrRecognition: z-score of hit rate zFrRecognition: z-score of false alarm rate dPrimeRecognition: Computes d' (parametric measure of discriminability) cRecognition: c-criterion in signal detection:The absolute value of c provides an indication of the strength of the response bias/response style negative: participant more likely to report that signal (go stims) is present (liberal response style); may favor faster responding in speed-accuracy trade-off response paradigms positive: favoring caution (conservative response style) delayedFreeRecallRecalledWords:stores the words entered for the free recall trial freeRecallWordEstimate: stores the computer-derived estimate of the number of words recalled in the free recall trial Note: see below of algoritm implemented. Algorithm does not check whether the recalled words are actual words. countCorrectFreeRecall: tracks the number of correctly recalled words for the free recall trial countCorrectFreeRecallA: tracks the number of correctly recalled words A for the free recall trial countCorrectFreeRecallB: tracks the number of correctly recalled words B for the free recall trial countCorrectFreeRecallPairs: tracks the number of correctly recalled complete word pairs for the free recall trial nrOtherFreeRecalledWords: stores the number of words not from the word pair list recalled during the free recall trial (based on FreeRecallEstimate) nrRecogIntrusions: stores the number of new words from the recognition test that were recalled during the free recall trial freeRecallIntrusions: stores all the words entered during the free recall trial that were not part of the list * separate data files: to change to one data file for all participants (on Inquisit Lab only), go to section "DATA" and follow further instructions ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (I) 4 blocks: List Learning/Recall Task - the words of a word pair are each presented for 1s (wordA is presented on the left for 1s, then word B is presented on the right for 1s) - the interstimulus interval btw. pairs is 2s - the order of the words is randomized for each round, both for the learning and recall portion Note: go to section Editable Lists to customize the presentation/recall order of the items for each of the rounds - after an editable delay (default: no delay), the immediate recall starts (self-paced) - feedback provided Duration: ~10 minutes (II) Break (default: 20min) (III) optional: Delayed Recall Task (no feedback provided) Duration: ~3 minutes - the order of the words is randomized Note: go to section Editable Lists to customize the recall order of the items (IV) optional: Delayed Recognition Task - 14 old word pairs and 14 new word pairs are presented randomly Note: go to section Editable Lists to customize the order of the items - the words of a word pair are each presented for 1s (wordA is presented on the left for 1s, then word B is presented on the right for 1s) - self-paced Duration: ~2 minutes (V) optional: Delayed Free Recall Task Duration: ~ 2 minutes ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ STIMULI ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The current stimuli lists are provided by Millisecond Software as demo lists. Currently, 14 unassociated word pairs are provided for the initial study list. An additional 14 unassociated words pairs are provided for the recognition test to serve as the unfamiliar (unstudied) word pairs. The word pairs as well as their semantic associations can easily be edited under section Editable Stimuli. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ INSTRUCTIONS ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ are provided by Millisecond Software - change under section Editable Instructions ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ EDITABLE CODE ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ check below for (relatively) easily editable parameters, stimuli, instructions etc. Keep in mind that you can use this script as a template and therefore always "mess" with the entire code to further customize your experiment. The parameters you can change are: /oldKey: the "old key" response key (default: "Y"); the left response key /newKey: the "new key" response key (default: "N"); the right response key /wordSize: proportional sizing of study words (default: 6% of canvas height) /stimDuration: the duration (in ms) that each word of a pair is presented (default: 1000ms) /pairISI: the time (in ms) in between pairs (default: 2000ms) /recallDelay: the delay (in ms) between last presented study list word and the recall trial (default: 0ms) /minDelay: the minimum delay (in ms) between end of last immediate recall trial and the delayed recall/recognition task (default: 1200000ms = 20min) /runDelayedRecall: optional delayed recall task after the break true (1): delayed recall task is run (default) false (0): delayed recall task is skipped /runDelayedFreeRecall: optional delayed free recall task after the break true (1): delayed free recall task is run (default) false (0): delayed free recall task is skipped /runRecognitionTask: optional recognition task after the break true (1): recognition task is run (default) false (0): recognition task is skipped Note: if both the delayedRecall Task AND the recognition Task are skipped, the break is skipped as well