Administering the Task

When running the program, open 200trial_angORhap.psyexp or 200trial_anghap.psyexp by double clicking on the file. When you open the psyexp file, instead of opening the selected program, PsychoPy will create an untitled blank program. Close the untitled.psyexp window. Return to the original folder and re-open the intended program.

• Run the program by clicking on the green RUN button.

• Input Participant ID and counterbalance group.

  1. In the happy/angry task, you should see this window pop up:

  
  Input the assigned Participant ID in the participant box and select hap or ang for group. The group label (hap or ang) specifies whether the task will begin with happy or angry faces sets. It is important to select these according to which counterbalance group the participant is assigned to.
  

  2. In the happy&angry task, you should see this window pop up:

  
  

  Input the assigned Participant ID in the participant box and select negLeft or negRight for response. The response label (negLeft or negRight) specifies whether the visual analog scale will have the “Extremely Negative” label on the left or right end of the scale. It is important to select these according to which counterbalance group the participant is assigned to.

• Click OK after you have inputted the appropriate information.

After you click OK, the task will run in full screen on the testing laptop. You will first see a welcome message on the screen “Welcome to the emotion recognition task!”

• Press the space bar to advance.

  You will then see instruction displayed on the screen:

In the next task, you will be asked to judge the average emotion of faces presented on the screen. You will first see a fixation cross, then eight faces presented simultaneously for a couple seconds. You will then be asked to make your response on a slider with ONE click. Please indicate where the AVERAGE emotion of the faces you just saw land on a scale between "Extremely Negative" and "Extremely Positive."

Any questions?

[Press the space bar to begin the task.]

Note: In the instruction text, the scale label names will be changed according to counterbalance group. In the happy/angry task, you will see either "Neutral" and "Positive" or "Neutral" and "Negative" for the two blocks. In the happy&angry task, you will see either "Negative" and "Positive" or "Positive" and "Negative" for negLeft and negRight counterbalance groups.

• Press the space bar to advance.

  The task will begin immediately. The participant will view the fixation cross for 1 second, the face stimuli display for 2 seconds, and the mask for 0.5 second.

• Participants will be asked to make their response with a key press.

Notedly, when the response scale appears, the page will NOT advance until the participant has made their response OR if ten seconds have passed without a response. Please note that the scale will only read one key press (i.e., LEFT or RIGHT) from the participant as the final response.

The participant will receive immediate feedback for 1 second, and the task will advance automatically to fixation cross to begin to next trial. Feedback will be a visual color display. The correct answer (e.g., “Neutral”) will be colored. If the correct answer aligns with the participant’s response, the color will be green. Otherwise, the answer will be colored red.

1. In the happy/angry task, there will be 200 trials for each emotion block. Prior to the beginning of the second emotion block, you will view the instructions page again. Press the space bar to advance. The next block will begin immediately.

2. In the happy&angry task, there will be 200 trials in total.

A mid-task break will appear every 40 trials. Press the space bar to advance. After the task is finished, you will see the message “Great job! Thank you for completing the task!” on the center of the screen.

• Press the space bar to quit PsychoPy.

  Note: At all times, pressing the esc key will quit the program