Temporal Reproduction Task

Technical Manual

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Created: January 04, 2013

Last Modified: January 20, 2023 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements the Temporal Reproduction procedure as described in:

Wittmann, M., Leland, D.S., Jan Churan, J. & Paulus, M.P.(2007). Impaired time perception and motor timing in stimulant-dependent subjects. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 90, 183–192.

Duration

8 minutes

Description

Participants are asked to estimate the duration of a target tone (tone 1, 1-5s) by manually interrupting (-> Spacebar) a comparison tone (tone 2) when they think tone 2 was played as long as tone 1. Participants are actively discouraged from counting seconds by introducting a distractor task. Before tone 1 is played two target symbols appear on the screen that participants are asked to remember for a later forced-choice recognition task. At the end of the entire trial sequence, a comparison symbol is presented and participants have to decide whether this symbol was one of the two target symbols.

Procedure

a) Main Task: Temporal Reproduction
IV = duration of target tone (here: 1000ms, 2000ms, 3000ms, 4000, 5000ms) tested within-subjects
Main DV: latency of estimation (how long it takes participants to press after Tone 2 starts playing)

•Each level of the IV is repeated 6 times for a total of 30 trials.
•the order is determined randomly
•target tone 1 (300Hz)/comparison tone 2 (600Hz) have a maximum duration of 20,000ms/25,000ms in this script
(replace under section Editable Stimuli for longer durations; the tones for this script were created with
Audacity)

b) Distractor Task: forced-choice Recognition Task
the original article does not specify the details of this task
In this script: 10 symbols (customize under section Editable Stimuli)
• each symbol appears 6 times as one of the target symbols
• in half the time the comparison symbol is familiar
(it's randomly decided which one of the two symbols is chosen for familiar trials)

Stimuli

provided by Millisecond - can be edited under section Editable Stimuli

Instructions

Instructions provided with this script are not the originals. Customize under section Editable Instructions

Summary Data

File Name: temporalReproduction_summary*.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
inquisit.version Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
startDate Date the session was run
startTime Time the session was run
subjectId Participant ID
groupId Group number
sessionId Session number
elapsedTime Session duration in ms
completed 0 = Test was not completed
1 = Test was completed
distractorTaskErrorRate Recognition error proportion for distractorTask
meanEstimationT1 - Mean estimation time (in ms) for t1 to t5
meanEstimationT5
stdEstimationT1- Standard deviation of the estimation times for t1 to t5
stdEstimationT5
cvT1- Coefficient of variation for t1 to t5
cvT5

Raw Data

File Name: remporalReproduction_raw*.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
date Date the session was run
time Time the session was run
subject Participant ID
group Group number
session Session number
blockCode Name of the current block
blockNum Number of the current block
trialCode Name of the current trial
trialNum Number of the current trial
firstDistractor Stores the index of the first distractor symbol
secondDistractor Stores the index of the second distractor symbol
selectCompDistractor Stores current index of the comparison distractor
tone1Duration Stores the current duration of Tone1
estimationRT Latency of estimation (in ms)
response The participant's response
correct The correctness of the response (1 = correct; 0 = incorrect)
relevant only for comp-distractor question
latency The response latency (in ms)

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.

NameDescriptionDefault
durationBtwTones Posttrialpause after presenting tone1 in ms1000
iti Intertrialinterval, break inbetween main trial sequences in ms 2000
distractorDuration Duration of the target distractors in ms1000
Tone1 Duration Settings (In Ms): The 5 Levels Of The Iv
t1: 1000
t2: the provided sound files last for max 20s(tone1)/25s(tone2); for longer durations2000
t3: These sound files need to be replaced3000
t4: 4000
t5: 5000