Button-box cutouts and labeling

Periodically we receive requests for button-box cutouts or labels. The button-box cutouts that were available on the website are outdated and instead of updating them we have decided to remove the cutouts all together.

The reason is that labels or cutouts stimulate bad experiment practice. This bad practice involves making the participant look at the button box before making a choice or at the minimum tempting the participant to do so.

Causing a shift in focus by the button box will result in it no longer being an accurate response-recording device. Good experiment practice is to provide clear and concise instruction or feedback via the computer display about a button press. This allows the participant to focus primarily on the display and will result in more accurate response time data.

Consult one of the technical staff members if you need any help with programming button instruction or feedback into your experiment script.