Psyscope allows you to present stimuli to subjects, and measure the responses given to the stimuli. It is a very good program, when you can figure out how it works. This manual will present the basics of Psyscope, but it in no way replaces the official manual, it will serve as an adjunct to it. Further questions regarding Psyscope should be directed at Eddie, but no guarantees are made as to his response. The arrangement of the manual is that concepts will be introduced in a fairly basic fashion, followed by a description of a small experiment which uses the concepts and explains them more fully.

There are several factors that should be taken into consideration when using Psyscope, primarily that it does not hold your hand. You have to be prepared to dot the i’s and cross the t’s when using the program, you can leave nothing out. In this it behaves in a fashion very much analagous to any programming language, indeed, you can actually program in Psyscript, although use of the graphic environment is probably easiest.

Your initial thoughts when designing an exeriment should start from the following basic steps:-

• First, you must work out exactly what your stimulus types will be, i.e. are you going to be presenting text, sounds, graphics.
• Second, what devices are you going to use for acquiring your responses. This topic will be discussed more fully, but to give you an idea of the range available - keyboard, mouse, button box, microphone.
• Third, what data are you wishing to obtain from the experiment, and what analyses do you wish to perform on the data.

Psyscope "devices" a brief description of the input and output devices used in Psyscope

Stimuli used in Psyscope descriptions of, and methods of creating Stimuli for use in Psyscope.

Run through for the design of a Psyscope Experiment.

All material Copyright Eddie Dubourg/Department of Linguistics, University of Edinburgh