Instructions for Attention Control Tasks

Most of the tasks require E-Prime software to use, however the Three-Minute Squared tasks are available to work on any Windows and Mac computer. Find out more about E-Prime at https://www.pstnet.com/eprime.cfm. Our lab is in no way affiliated with E-Prime or the company behind it, Psychological Software Tools Inc. (PST).

Graduate Students in the lab volunteer their time to provide free passwords and support for the tasks. As such, we can give some basic support but please read the FAQ first, and consider contacting your IT department or PST for issues you may have. All we ask in return is to please cite a couple articles listed in the References tab.

How To

Steps to complete before running your first participant

After unzipping the folder with the password provided, be sure to add the files to the folder (and computer) you will use to run the experiment from. This is also the folder where the data will be saved to.
Open the E-Run file on the computer you will use for the experiment. Make sure that it is working on that computer. Occasionally there are compatibility issues with different Windows OS versions and E-Prime versions. It is better that you discover any issues before running your first participant. If you are having trouble getting the task to run without errors, please contact us at englelabtaskmanager@gmail.com. In the email, be sure to include information on what version of Windows and E-Prime you have installed.
Once you get the task to execute without errors, go through one complete run of the task (from beginning to end). When you get to the end, a red screen will be displayed letting the participant know the task is finished. The experimenter will need to hit the “Q” key on the keyboard to PROPERLY exit the task. This is very important, otherwise the E-Data file will NOT be compiled and you may lose data.
After going through one complete run of the task and properly exiting the task you will notice a couple of files have now been created. Before you begin your study it is important you understand these files and how to obtain the variables of interest. You really need only one of these files to look at participant data. Here is a descriptions of the relevant data file:

File Type	Description
.edat	Once the task has been completed, E-Prime will create an .edat file that has the name of the task and subject # in the filename. This is the typical E-Prime data file that can be opened with the E-Data Aid software program. This file contains data on all the variables in the task for each block and trial. You can use this file to obtain the span scores for a single subject. You can also do more detailed analysis on the subjects performance on the task. Such as their trial-by-trial performance on the processing portion of the task. You should merge multiple .edat files from all subjects into one Merged file with the E-Merge program and then export the merged file as .txt file to open in other data analysis software programs.

.edat

Once the task has been completed, E-Prime will create an .edat file that has the name of the task and subject # in the filename. This is the typical E-Prime data file that can be opened with the E-Data Aid software program. This file contains data on all the variables in the task for each block and trial. You can use this file to obtain the span scores for a single subject. You can also do more detailed analysis on the subjects performance on the task. Such as their trial-by-trial performance on the processing portion of the task. You should merge multiple .edat files from all subjects into one Merged file with the E-Merge program and then export the merged file as .txt file to open in other data analysis software programs.

Troubleshooting Help for the Three Squared Tests of Attention Control

When running the E-Prime 3 versions of the three squared tasks, we have found a display driver incompatibility on some computers that will cause the entire screen, or parts of the screen, to appear black. If you encounter display problems when running the task (e.g., stimuli not displaying properly), here are a few workarounds:

Depending on your display driver, you can roll-back the display driver on your computer, using this E-Prime guide to help: https://support.pstnet.com/hc/en-us/articles/360062279813
If using a 12th generation Intel processor, the E-Prime 3 version of the task may not work at all: https://support.pstnet.com/hc/en-us/articles/9930596869655
If you prefer, you can use the Windows or Mac-compatible standalone version of these tasks, developed by Rich Pak (Clemson). This version of the tasks does not require E-Prime to run! Links to the standalone version of the tasks can be found on the task downloads page of the Engle Lab website.

Task Scoring

Use our Web App to easily obtain scores on the attention control tasks.

For R users, see our englelab package to obtain scores on the attention control tasks.

Please Cite These Articles

If you are using any of the Toolbox tasks

Draheim, C., Tsukahara, J.S., Engle, R.W. (under review). Replication and extension of the toolbox approach to measuring attention control.

Draheim, et al. (2021). A toolbox approach to improving the measurement of attention control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 150(2), 242-275. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000783

If you are using any of the Three-Minute Squared tasks

Burgoyne, A.P., Tsukahara, J.S., Mashburn. C.A., Pak, R., & Engle, R.W. (under review). Nature and Measurement of Attention Control.

If you are using the antisaccade task

Hutchison (2007). Attention conrol and the relatedness proportion effect in semantic priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33(4), 645 - 662.

Unsworth et al. (2004). Working memory capacity and the antisaccade task: Individual differences in voluntary saccade control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30(6), 1302 - 1321.

If you are using the selective visual arrays task

Martin et al. (2021). The visual arrays task: Visual storage capacity or attention control? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0001048

Vogel, McCollough, & Machizawa (2005). Neural measures reveal individual differences in controlling access to working memory. Nature, 438(24), 500 - 503.

Frequently Asked Questions

See our FAQ page on our website

Access E-Studio Files

If you need to modify or translate the tasks in some way you will need the E-Studio Files

To obtain the E-Studio files, we ask that you send a signed agreement (via email to englelabtaskmanager@gmail.com) acknowledging the following:

You understand that our tasks are copyrighted and free to use for academic and scientific purposes only
You will not redistribute the task(s).
You will cite this lab in any future publication in which you use our task(s).
You will not change the nature of the task. If you make changes to the task, you will detail all changes made in any future publication so that those changes can be duplicated.
If you make any changes or translations, you will send us a copy of the finished E-Studio file so that we may host it on the website.

Once we receive the document via email, we will send you the requested file(s)