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This paper introduces ESMira, a server and mobile app (Android, iOS) developed for research projects using experience sampling method (ESM) designs. ESMira offers a very simple setup process and ease of use, while being free, decentralized, and open-source (source code is available on GitHub). The ongoing development of ESMira started in early 2019, with a focus on scientific requirements (e.g., informed consent, ethical considerations), data security (e.g., encryption), and data anonymity (e.g., completely anonymous data workflow). ESMira sets itself apart from other platforms by both being free of charge and providing study administrators with full control over study data without the need for specific technological skills (e.g., programming). This means that study administrators can have ESMira running on their own webspace without needing much technical knowledge, allowing them to remain independent from any third-party service. Furthermore, ESMira offers an extensive list of features (e.g., an anonymous built-in chat to contact participants; a reward system that allows participant incentivization without breaching anonymity; live graphical feedback for participants) and can deal with complex study designs (e.g., nested time-based sampling). In this paper, we illustrate the basic structure of ESMira, explain how to set up a new server and create studies, and introduce the platform's basic functionalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological research is increasingly moving online, where web-based studies allow for data collection at scale. Behavioural researchers are well supported by existing tools for participant recruitment, and for building and running experiments with decent timing. However, not all techniques are portable to the Internet: While eye tracking works in tightly controlled lab conditions, webcam-based eye tracking suffers from high attrition and poorer quality due to basic limitations like webcam availability, poor image quality, and reflections on glasses and the cornea. Here we present MouseView.js, an alternative to eye tracking that can be employed in web-based research. Inspired by the visual system, MouseView.js blurs the display to mimic peripheral vision, but allows participants to move a sharp aperture that is roughly the size of the fovea. Like eye gaze, the aperture can be directed to fixate on stimuli of interest. We validated MouseView.js in an online replication (N = 165) of an established free viewing task (N = 83 existing eye-tracking datasets), and in an in-lab direct comparison with eye tracking in the same participants (N = 50). Mouseview.js proved as reliable as gaze, and produced the same pattern of dwell time results. In addition, dwell time differences from MouseView.js and from eye tracking correlated highly, and related to self-report measures in similar ways. The tool is open-source, implemented in JavaScript, and usable as a standalone library, or within Gorilla, jsPsych, and PsychoJS. In sum, MouseView.js is a freely available instrument for attention-tracking that is both reliable and valid, and that can replace eye tracking in certain web-based psychological experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an open-source online tool for introducing psychology students to the major theoretical and empirical facts of habituation. The tool was designed in a way that combines theory and data through simulated experiments. The simulations exemplify how the priming theory of Allan R. Wagner accounts for the set of behavioral characteristics of habituation proposed by Richard F. Thompson and W. Alden Spencer in 1966. Through this interactive platform, the user can learn the basics of the theory and examine how it accounts for the empirical facts with different parameters. Instructions and commands are provided in three languages: English, Spanish, and Portuguese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers are facing unprecedented challenges that affect our ability to run in-person experiments. With mandated social distancing in a controlled laboratory environment, many researchers are searching for alternative options to conduct research, such as online experimentation. However, online experimentation comes at a cost; learning online tools for building and publishing psychophysics experiments can be complicated and time-consuming. This learning cost is unfortunate because researchers typically only need to use a small percentage of these tools' capabilities, but they still have to deal with these systems' complexities (e.g., complex graphical user interfaces or difficult programming languages). Furthermore, after the experiment is built, researchers often have to find an online platform compatible with the tool they used to program the experiment. To simplify and streamline the online process of programming and hosting an experiment, I have created SimplePhy. SimplePhy can save researchers' time and energy by allowing them to create a study in just a few clicks. All researchers have to do is select among a few experiment settings and upload the stimuli. SimplePhy is able to run most psychophysical perception experiments that require mouse clicks and button presses. In addition to collecting online behavioral data, SimplePhy can also collect information regarding the estimated viewing distance between the participant and the monitor, the screen size, and the experimental trial's timing—features not always offered in other online platforms. Overall, SimplePhy is a simple, free, open-source tool (code can be found here: https://gitlab.com/malago/simplephy) aimed to help labs conduct their experiments online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing employment of eye-tracking technology in different application areas and in vision research has led to an increased need to measure fast eye-movement events. Whereas the cost of commercial high-speed eye trackers (above 300 Hz) is usually in the tens of thousands of EUR, to date, only a small number of studies have proposed low-cost solutions. Existing low-cost solutions however, focus solely on lower frame rates (up to 120 Hz) that might suffice for basic eye tracking, leaving a gap when it comes to the investigation of high-speed saccadic eye movements. In this paper, we present and evaluate a system designed to track such high-speed eye movements, achieving operating frequencies well beyond 500 Hz. This includes methods to effectively and robustly detect and track glints and pupils in the context of high-speed remote eye tracking, which, paired with a geometric eye model, achieved an average gaze estimation error below 1 degree and average precision of 0.38 degrees. Moreover, average undetection rate was only 0.33%. At a total investment of less than 600 EUR, the proposed system represents a competitive and suitable alternative to commercial systems at a tiny fraction of the cost, with the additional advantage that it can be freely tuned by investigators to fit their requirements independent of eye-tracker vendors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PsychoPy is an application for the creation of experiments in behavioral science (psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, etc.) with precise spatial control and timing of stimuli. It now provides a choice of interface; users can write scripts in Python if they choose, while those who prefer to construct experiments graphically can use the new Builder interface. Here we describe the features that have been added over the last 10 years of its development. The most notable addition has been that Builder interface, allowing users to create studies with minimal or no programming, while also allowing the insertion of Python code for maximal flexibility. We also present some of the other new features, including further stimulus options, asynchronous time-stamped hardware polling, and better support for open science and reproducibility. Tens of thousands of users now launch PsychoPy every month, and more than 90 people have contributed to the code. We discuss the current state of the project, as well as plans for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

nodeGame is a free, open-source JavaScript/ HTML5 framework for conducting synchronous experiments online and in the lab directly in the browser window. It is specifically designed to support behavioral research along three dimensions: (i) larger group sizes, (ii) real-time (but also discrete time) experiments, and (iii) batches of simultaneous experiments. nodeGame has a modular source code, and defines an API (application programming interface) through which experimenters can create new strategic environments and configure the platform. With zero-install, nodeGame can run on a great variety of devices, from desktop computers to laptops, smartphones, and tablets. The current version of the software is 3.0, and extensive documentation is available on the wiki pages at http://nodegame. org. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is commonly used to understand the processes involved in decision-making. Though the task was originally run without a computer, using a computerized version of the task has become typical. These computerized versions of the IGT are useful, because they can make the task more standardized across studies and allow for the task to be used in environments where a physical version of the task may be difficult or impossible to use (e.g., while collecting brain imaging data). Though these computerized versions of the IGT have been useful for experimentation, having multiple software implementations of the task could present reliability issues. We present an open-source software version of the Iowa Gambling Task (called IGT-Open) that allows for millisecond visual presentation accuracy and is freely available to be used and modified. This software has been used to collect data from human subjects and also has been used to run model-based simulations with computational process models developed to run in the ACT-R architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The moving-window paradigm, based on gazecontingent technic, traditionally used in a studies of the visual perceptual span. There is a strong demand for new environments that could be employed by non-technical researchers. We have developed an easy-to-use tool with a graphical user interface (GUI) allowing both execution and control of visual gaze-contingency studies. This work describes ScreenMasker, an environment that allows create gaze-contingent textured displays used together with stimuli presentation software. ScreenMasker has an architecture that meets the requirements of low-latency real-time eye-movement experiments. It also provides a variety of settings and functions. Effective rendering times and performance are ensured by means of GPU processing under CUDA technology. Performance tests show ScreenMasker's latency to be 67-74 ms on a typical office computer, and high-end 144-Hz screen latencies of about 25-28 ms. ScreenMasker is an open-source system distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License and is available at . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Performing online behavioral research is gaining increased popularity among researchers in psychological and cognitive science. However, the currently available methods for conducting online reaction time experiments are often complicated and typically require advanced technical skills. In this article, we introduce the Qualtrics Reaction Time Engine (QRTEngine), an open-source JavaScript engine that can be embedded in the online survey development environment Qualtrics. The QRTEngine can be used to easily develop browser-based online reaction time experiments with accurate timing within current browser capabilities, and it requires only minimal programming skills. After introducing the QRTEngine, we briefly discuss how to create and distribute a Stroop task. Next, we describe a study in which we investigated the timing accuracy of the engine under different processor loads using external chronometry. Finally, we show that the QRTEngine can be used to reproduce classic behavioral effects in three reaction time paradigms: a Stroop task, an attentional blink task, and a masked-priming task. These findings demonstrate that QRTEngine can be used as a tool for conducting online behavioral research even when this requires accurate stimulus presentation times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The PyGaze toolbox is an open-source software package for Python, a high-level programming language. It is designed for creating eyetracking experiments in Python syntax with the least possible effort, and it offers programming ease and script readability without constraining functionality and flexibility. PyGaze can be used for visual and auditory stimulus presentation; for response collection via keyboard, mouse, joystick, and other external hardware; and for the online detection of eye movements using a custom algorithm. A wide range of eyetrackers of different brands (EyeLink, SMI, and Tobii systems) are supported. The novelty of PyGaze lies in providing an easy-to-use layer on top of the many different software libraries that are required for implementing eyetracking experiments. Essentially, PyGaze is a software bridge for eyetracking research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tatool ( Training and Testing T ool) was developed to assist researchers with programming training software, experiments, and questionnaires. Tatool is Java-based, and thus is a platform-independent and object-oriented framework. The architecture was designed to meet the requirements of experimental designs and provides a large number of predefined functions that are useful in psychological studies. Tatool comprises features crucial for training studies (e.g., configurable training schedules, adaptive training algorithms, and individual training statistics) and allows for running studies online via Java Web Start. The accompanying 'Tatool Online' platform provides the possibility to manage studies and participants' data easily with a Web-based interface. Tatool is published open source under the GNU Lesser General Public License, and is available at . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]