Atsip 2006

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Atsip 2006

• Noel Taylor
• University of Hertfordshire

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Developing with Authorware

• Testbed Revisited

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Testbed

• Testbed is a Response Test Generator Program,
  developed using Authorware

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Testbed

• It is free
• Install on student notebooks
• Not intended for high level research projects
• Experiments setup quickly
• Many types of media
• Many types of experiment
• On-going developement

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Types of stimuli

• Images bmp, tiff, jpeg, wmf, pict, giff, psd,
  targa, png
• Sounds wav, mp3, aiff, shockwave audio
• Plain Text
• Rich Text Files (from Word)
• Video Quicktime or Avi
• Animations flash, director, autodesk
• Pdf
• stimuli lists of any combination of the above

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Types of experiment

• Simple unevaluated response tests
• Evaluated response tests
• correct/incorrect
• Correct/neutral/incorrect
• Non-evaluated tests and surveys
• Likert Scales
• Free Text Entry
• Single key responses

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Details of experiment types

• Text based tests can be configured as
• Basic Stroop Tests
• To show x number of words before a response is
  required
• Text can be formatted with colour, font size and
  screen position

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Additional features

• Configure automatic time-outs
• Pre-configured fixation events
• Configure thankyou messages
• Configure help screens
• Add questions to stimuli events
• Pause between stimuli, pause between blocks,
  pause between subjects
• Position stimuli on screen using drag and drop
• Change background colours to any colour
• Select stimuli randomly, alphabetical order,
  randomly with x repeats
• Group blocks together.
• Select blocks randomly, numerical order or
  manually at run time

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Speed of setting up

• Testbed uses all the contents of a folder to
  create one block (except for word stimuli
  lists)
• Block settings can be duplicated when creating
  new ones
• Blocks can be previewed from within the setup
  program.
• Evaluated responses assigned via standard list
  boxes

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Response hardware

• Mouse devices
• Keys
• Serial port devices
• Cedrus Response Pads
• Voice Keys

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Results files

• Testbed offers two types of results records
• One file per subject replicates the Superlab
  format
• Advantage easy for novice users to understand
• Disadvantage harder to import for analysis into
  SPSS/Excel
• One file per experiment all subjects recorded
  in a single file
• Advantage harder for novice users to understand
  
• Disadvantage easier to import for analysis into
  SPSS/Excel

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Authorware 7.0

• Interactive learning materials
• negative points
• Unfashionable
• No Shockwave plugin
• Poor design tools
• Limited transparency effects
• Poor support Adobe
• Not fully object oriented
• Overly linear
• Interpreted code, based on Pascal syntax

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Authorware 7.0

• main positive points
• Rapid development tool
• Linear model is intuitive
• Icons aid visualisation of structure
• System substructure handled by the Authorware
  runtime
• Knowledge Objects
• Many third party functions
• Highly Extensible to programers
• Flash Director Xtras supported
• Imports Flash Director under scripted control
• Cross platform Internet
• Supports Javascript
• Supports wide range of media

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Authorware Testbed

• Multimedia synchronisation features
• More accurate timings than system clock
• Multimedia clock also used by Superlab
• Built in support for wide range of media types
• Interpreted code has minimal effect at the
  crucial points in program

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THERE WAS A DEMO OF AUTHOREWARE AT THIS
POINT Testbed can be downloaded
at http//testbed.herts.ac.uk/testbed.htm (its
best to download the sample media files as well)