Accuracy feedback block

Score keyboard responses and show correct, incorrect, or timeout feedback after every trial.

When to use it

Use this when participants should learn from every response, as in category training or any task where you want performance to stay calibrated rather than drift. The naive version, writing only correct and incorrect messages, breaks down as soon as a response deadline exists: a trial that times out matches neither outcome, so the participant sees nothing and cannot tell a slow response from a broken task. This setup covers all three outcomes and auto-advances, keeping the block’s rhythm steady. If feedback is only meant for warm-up, restrict it to practice rows and leave the scored block uncoached instead.

Trial file

type	stimFormat	stim1	keyboard	key	responseWindow	feedback	feedbackOptions	feedbackTime
test	word	HORSE	a l	a	3000	correct: Correct!;incorrect: Not quite;timeout: Too slow. Please respond within 3 seconds	center	1000
test	word	BOTTLE	a l	l	3000	correct: Correct!;incorrect: Not quite;timeout: Too slow. Please respond within 3 seconds	center	1000
test	word	TIGER	a l	a	3000	correct: Correct!;incorrect: Not quite;timeout: Too slow. Please respond within 3 seconds	center	1000
test	word	CHAIR	a l	l	3000	correct: Correct!;incorrect: Not quite;timeout: Too slow. Please respond within 3 seconds	center	1000

How it works

Each word is categorised with A (animal) or L (object) via keyboard, and key scores the response; that correctness is what the feedback grammar branches on, so outcome-dependent feedback needs key to be set. The feedback cell is a semicolon-separated list of key: message segments, and this one covers all three outcomes: correct:, incorrect:, and timeout:.

The timeout: segment is not decoration. responseWindow gives each trial a 3000 ms deadline, and a trial that times out with no timeout: segment shows no feedback at all, even when incorrect: or a catch-all is defined. Whenever a deadline makes timeouts possible, the timeout message must be spelled out.

feedbackOptions set to center centres the message in the display area, and feedbackTime of 1000 holds it for one second before auto-advancing. An empty feedbackTime would instead show a NEXT button, and 0 is not the same as empty: it advances immediately. Feedback only runs on test and practice trials, so the type value matters here too. As on every keyboard trial, keep key lowercase; a match that only succeeds after ignoring case leaves the trial unscored.

Variations

• Let participants dismiss the feedback themselves by leaving feedbackTime empty; a NEXT button appears.
• Overlay the feedback on the still-visible trial screen by adding sameScreen to feedbackOptions; the spelling must be exactly sameScreen, since any other casing clears the screen first.
• Show the measured reaction time by putting %rt% in the feedback message, for example correct: Correct in %rt% ms.
• Swap the outcome keys for literal response keys (a: You pressed A;l: You pressed L) to describe the response rather than its accuracy.