Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP) experiment for oTree
March 2021, Markus Konrad markus.konrad@wzb.eu / post@mkonrad.net / Berlin Social Science Center
This project is currently not maintained.
Introduction
This repository contains an application for oTree (Chen et al. 2016) which implements the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP) experiment (Payne et al. 2005, Payne & Lundberg 2014, Teige-Mocigemba et al. 2017).
Images of targets (Chinese characters) in directory _static/amp/targets were published by Keith Payne at http://bkpayne.web.unc.edu/research-materials/.
Optionally makes use of the otreeutils package (Konrad 2018).
Screenshot of a trial:
Features and limitations
- precise timing of prime and target exposures in milliseconds
- prime and target images are pre-loaded before first display to prevent download delay
- precise measurement of responses in milliseconds
- progress bar showing advancement of trials for each participant
- each measurement is stored individually in the database
- live view of measurements during experiment in oTree's data view
- easily adjustable (see configuration)
- requires keyboard for responses but may be extended to work on mobile devices as well
- results are transferred to server at the end of each round (each round or block consists of several trials), not after each trial
Requirements
- tested with Python 3.7 and Python 3.8
- tested with otree 3.3.0 to otree 3.3.11
oTree AMP may work with higher versions than specified here, but this is untested.
You can install the exact requirements using pip: pip install -r requirements.txt
If you want to see live view of measurements during the experiment in the "data" view of oTree's admin panel, you additional need to install otreeutils version 0.10.0 or newer: pip install otreeutils[admin].
If you want to use oTree AMP with an older version of oTree, you may try a previous release as listed under Releases on the right side. To know which version of oTree AMP works with which version of oTree, see the Changes section below.
Configuration
Prime and target images
For your own experiment, you probably want to exchange the prime images (the repository contains example images of cats and dogs) and optionally the target images. Both are located in _static/amp/primes and _static/amp/targets respectively.
The repository comes with example images for two prime classes prime_a and prime_b inside the primes folder. The images are automatically loaded if you put them there and randomly assigned to the target classes. The number of images per prime class should be the same.
As explained before, the images for the targets are Chinese characters obtained from http://bkpayne.web.unc.edu/research-materials/ and divided into positive (pos folder) and negative (neg folder) classes. You may replace those images – you should only make sure that the number of images per target class is the same. The number of images determines the number of trials that are run per block.
Further configuration via Constants
The Constants class in amp/models.py contains further configuration settings such as the number of blocks (num_rounds) and the display timings that determine for how long the prime and target image are shown.
Code structure and page sequence
Models
A custom Trial class is defined in amp/models.py that stores information for each trial per player such as displayed prime / target and participant's response. The trials are set up in creating_session() in class Subsession where the prime and target images are detected in the respective folders and random assignment of primes and targets takes place (see sample_targets_and_primes()).
Pages and templates
The page sequence consists of four classes in amp/pages.py:
IntroPageAMPPracticePageAMPPageAMPFinished
AMPPracticePage is derived from AMPPage and uses the same template (AMPPage.html) but sets is_practice to True. On the practice page, the participant can try out the experiment process without recording any measurments. Primes and targets for the practice page are loaded from the respective folders with _practice suffix in _static/amp/. The real test is then implemented in AMPPage, especially in the JavaScript functions of the HTML template. The randomized Trial objects are loaded for the participant for the given round and passed to the template where they are displayed. During the test, the response times and keys are recorded and submitted when the next block is loaded or all blocks are finished. The submitted trial responses are handled and stored to the database in the method AMPPage.before_next_page().
Data export
You can export the data from the "Data" page (https://<yourserver>/export) via the iat (custom) links. If you have otreeutils installed, you can also use the data_exporter.py script by executing python data_exporter.py my_data.json in the terminal, which will store all collected data in JSON format to my_data.json.
For later processing of the JSON data, you may use the jsonlite package for R or the built-in json module in Python.
Tests
Automated tests are implemented in amp/tests.py and can be run via otree test amp.
Testing multiple combinations of Python and oTree versions is done using tox. You can install the package tox via pip and then run tox on the command line.
Code changes
2021-03-03: v1.1.0 (oTree 3.3.x)
- added compatibility with oTree 3.3.x
- dependency to otreeutils is now optional
- added tox integration for testing multiple Python/oTree versions
2019-21-08: v1.0.0 (oTree 2.1.x)
- initial release
License
Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE file.