General questions
Q: Why is it called PsyToolkit
A: Psy is short for Psychology and Toolkit refers to the various software tools PsyToolkit comes with.
Q: What can one do with PsyToolkit?
A: In short, you can program and run cognitive psychological experiments, you can run surveys, and you can do this all offline or online, including online data collection.
Q: Are you on the social media?
A: Not much, but PsyToolkit has a twitter account: http://www.twitter.com/psytoolkit
Q: Why is this software free?
A: There is a lot of free software available, and there is a profound philosophy behind it. Read more about this here. Free software makes it more accessible to use, especially for students.
Q: Who uses PsyToolkit?
A: PsyToolkit is being used around the world. Many psychology students use it for research projects.
Q: What is the difference between Eprime, Superlab, and PsyToolkit?
A: There are many differences, even though these software packages have many similar aims. One difference is that PsyToolkit does not have a graphical user interface for programming your experiments. Another difference is that PsyToolkit does not have the resources for full user support like commercial companies do. Otherwise, PsyToolkit is on par with those packages.
Q: Why not a graphical user interface?
A: Although a graphical user interface might give you the impression it is easier to use, it is actually much easier and faster to work with a text file.
Q: Does PsyToolkit work on tablets and mobile phones?
A: Yes, but there are limitations for cognitive psychological experiments. Typically, you want to collect response times, and keyboards are good input devices. With only a touch screen, the online surveys work fine, though (although you cannot do experiments with keyboard input).
Q: Is the response measurement timing reliable?
A: It is different for the web based version and the Linux offline version. The latter is super precise. For many experiments, you probably do not necessarily need such high levels of precision. Yet, it is good enough to reliably measure relatively small effects, such as Inhibition Of Return or the Simon Effect (i.e., effects of less than 50 ms effects).
Q: How can we support PsyToolkit?
A: You can do one of the following things:
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Write about the software on the social media
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Send me an email about what you like about the software, I am always interested to hear positive stories about people who benefit from the software, and it motivates me to expand the software.
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Write a more formal letter of support to me explaining how you use the software and why you think it is good. Ideally, this letter would be sent as PDF. Such letters help me to get the support within my organisation.
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Consider a donation.
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Tell colleagues about the software.
Q: Can you implement feature X, please?
A: I am always open to suggestions of new features. Just send me an email.
Online interface for scripting experiments
Q: Is the scripting language for online experiments different from the Linux version?
A: No, it is the same, although some features are designed only for the Linux version (such as external keyboards) and some features only for online experiments
Online interface for writing surveys
Q: How long can surveys run?
A: Currently, they can be active for as long as you want, but there are no guarantees.
Q: Will surveys stay valid if the software is updated?
A: Yes, the old versions will stay active. If you compile a survey with a specific PsyToolkit-for-the-web version, this will remain active, even though the latest version of PsyToolkit might have new or changed features. This makes the life of researchers easier.
Q: Which browsers are supported?
A: All modern browsers, including Internet Explorer version 10 and higher. Embedding experiments with keyboard input requires a real keyboard (touchscreens won’t work very well or not at all).
Q: Where can I add information for participants (such as plain language statement, etc)?
A: If you create a survey, you can put this information in the various text boxes under survey intro screen.
Q: What sort of survey items are available?
A: There are many different items available, including Likert scales, choice questions, text boxes, embedded experiments and videos, etc. Check the online documentation under Question Types. You can also copy and paste existing scales from the survey library.
Q: Can the order of questions be randomized?
A: Yes (read how to)
Q: Can you randomly assign participants to questionnaires?
A: Yes (read how to)
Q: How much content can be put on one page?
A: You can have multiple items on one page. Multiple items belonging to one main item are listed with the "-" sign.
Q: Is there a tracker of how far the participant has come in a survey?
A: At the top of the web page, the percentage completed is indicated. This might not always be accurate if you include conditional elements (i.e., you cannot predict how long the survey will last if certain questions might be skipped depending on how some questions are being answered).
Q: Can people go back with the browser back button?
A: Yes
Q: How can you embed an experiment in a survey?
A: You will first need to have a working experiment, and then you can embed it in the "experiment" item. An example can be viewed here.
Q: How can you embed a video in a survey?
A: You can embed a YouTube video. Here is an example.
Q: What types of cognitive tasks are already available.
A: There are a number of cognitive tasks in the online library. You will still need to understand data analysis techniques to extract the data you want. If there are special tasks you are interested in, you can program them yourselves, or make a suggestion to me to implement it.
Q: How can I invited participants to participate in the survey I have created?
A: When you create a survey and select it to go online, a URL link is provided. You need to send this to your participants yourselves or advertise somewhere on a website, the PsyToolkit website will not do that for you.
Q: What sort of format will the data be stored in?
A: The data will be available in a raw format (text file) and in the common spreadsheet format CSV, which can be opened with all spreadsheet software.
Q: Can surveys be programmed so that participants get feedback about their own answers at the end?
A: Currently not. Only experiments can give feedback about performance.
Q: Can the text font of questions be changed?
A: Yes, all text can be changed using html tags. Click here for some examples.
Q: Is there an option for "must fill out" questions?
A: Yes, you can "require" that people give an answer. For "radio" (choice) questions this is the default, and for text boxes you can add the option require. Check the documentation about textlines on how this works.
Q: Can you have survey links that are unique to participants?
A: Each survey you create has one survey link. This means, in essence, that participants are unidentifyable. You can, of course, ask people to identify them with a question about their email. Also, you can give people an identifier code at the end of the survey, which they can then use for course credits, etc. Check here how that works.
Q: Can you run surveys in different languages?
A: Yes, the text on the buttons and so on can be set to English, German, Dutch, and simplified Chinese.
Q: Can you change the button text?
A: Yes, you can use the questionnaire item operator "b:", see Check here how that works.
Details about experiment scripting
Details about the Linux offline version
Q: Is there a recommended Linux distribution?
A: No, PsyToolkit for Linux should run on any modern distribution.
Q: Where can I download the Linux software?
Q: Will you implement this on other platforms, such as Mac or Windows?
A: No, but there is other free software available for those platforms.
Q: Which external keyboards does PsyToolkit support?
A: Cedrus and IOlab (although these latter ones are probably no longer being made or sold). You can also build your own keyboard and use the parallel port. Read more about this here.