Software Review Software: E-Prime Jaehwang Shim (Chung-Ang University) Shim, Jaehwang (2006). Review of E-Prime. Multimedia-Assisted Language Learning, 7(3), 313-322. I. INTRODUCTION The scientific study of the nervous systems has exploded in the second half of the twentieth century, principally due to revolutions in molecular biology and in digital computation. With the emergence of powerful experimental techniques such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fmri), neuroscience is now beginning to address questions unique in human cognition and emotion. Many mental processes previously thought to be beyond scientific understanding have been shown to have related to neural correlates. Neuroscience is also beginning to become allied with social sciences and language analysis(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/neuroscience). Scientists are able to understand the complex processes occurring inside a brain. The following step is to make sense of these processes in understanding human emotion or recognition, and its application to language learning or teaching. E-Prime is a suite of applications that can measure the subject's response time(rt) from the input materials by the unit of millisecond-timing precision (Ulrich & Miller, 1994: Wickens, 1992). E-Prime enables researchers to develop a wide variety of paradigms that can be implemented with randomized or fixed presentation of text, pictures and sounds (Busey & Loftus, 1994).
314 Software: E-Prime II. FEATURES OF E-PRIME E-Prime, developed by Psychology Software Tools(PST), is a commercial suite of applications which fulfills many research needs in the fields of psychology and neuroscience. Most users of this package will use it to create various types of behavioral and cognitive psychology research experiments(http://e-prime_e-studio). The main function of the software is the precision of data handling and processing. That is, E-Prime is temporally accurate to within a few milliseconds, which is a crucial characteristic for scientific research needs. Furthermore, E-Prime has its large user base: the software has been in existence since 1996 and has reached over 10,000 users (http://en.wikipedia: the free encyclopedia). 1. Key Features The core system includes: E-Studio, E-Basic, E-Run, E-Merge, E-DataAid, and E-Recovery(Schneider, Eschman, & Zuccolotto, 2002). First, E-Studio is program starter for paradigm creation after a user installs the program. The user can define the study scope and all informations he/she wants with each subject's dataset. An experiment should be decided and presented with a series of E-Objects function which has a set of specific properties. The properties determine the procedures and material input for the experiment. [Table 1] Property of E-Objects Procedure TextDisplay ImageDisplay Slide List SoundOut FeedbackDisplay acts as a timeline for events within the experiment. allows presentation of a full screen of text. allows presentation of images in BMP format. allows presentation of a combination of text, images and/or sound. contains/controls all independent variables, attributes, stimuli, and sampling. allows presentation of sound files in WAV format. allows automatic visual and/or audio feedback at the end of a procedure. The E-Basic is a programming language which the user requires. Using this language, a user can implement highly complex paradigms and record measurements from virtually any types of the program which he/she wants. The graphical representations of experiments are automatically compiled into a complete E-Basic script with a single
Jaehwang Shim 315 mouse click. E-Run is an installed program which a user or a researcher intends to produce specific data. With the program, subjects can actually runs the paradigm that a researcher created earlier. A subject can answer to the tasks by a simply reaction such as a single mouse click on the computer. Once the experiment is compiled, E-Run collects and stores all data with the millisecond precision. E-Merge application allows a user to quickly and easily combine the single session data into multi-session data files. While keeping a history on each data file, this is particularly useful in order to determine which files have been merged along with the date and location of each data file. When a subject completes the process of an experiment, E-Prime saves the data in a specialized file. With E-DataAid, a user can study the data saved from the experimental run, and send the data to other applications. E-DataAid also gives a user the statistical informations such as the mean accuracy through the analyzing procedures. E-Recovery program helps a user to solve a lot of mechanical disorder during the experiment. A user sometimes stop a session in the middle of a trial, or a computer problem might cause the experiment to be interrupted. In such a case, a user can use this program to recover some of the information into a normal condition. 2. Full Installation The full installation should be provided for the entire suite of E-Prime applications. The applications include all key features which function in order to meet the requirement or use. [Table 2] Application of E-Prime Use Application Use Relevant File(s) E-Studio Examination/modification of experiment specifications, generation of EBS files Experiment specification(es) E-Run Stimulus presentation, data collection, E-Basic script(ebs), data Demonstration files(edat) E-Merge Merging of data files Data files(edat, EMRG) E-DataAid Examination, analysis, export, Data files(edat, EMRG) Regeneration of tables or analyses Analysis files(anl) E-Recovery Conversion of E-Run text files to EDAT Text data files(txt) generated files. by E-Run Factor Table Wizard Stimulus list creation. Excel spreadsheets(xls)
316 Software: E-Prime E-Prime is a copy-protected system requiring a hardware key that connects to the computer s parallel or USB port. The parallel port hardware key that has copy protection scheme is a pass-through device and limits the number of development machines as the number of licenses purchased(schneider, et al., 2002). In order to practice the program of the software, the key is required for installation before its demonstration or experiment. Other applications require the hardware key to be installed depending on the type of license in use. III. THE APPLICATION OF E-PRIME According to the research purpose, a user can program and arrange the input stimuli from the trial procedure. E-Prime stores the experiment's data while the subjects run the test of the program. By analyzing and identifying response time in the brain, the software provides a lot of meaningful information, especially in correlations between each group as well as the individuals. Furthermore, if a user applies the result for language research, the data are significant in language teaching such as reading and listening. The findings may suggest that a teacher should consider the learners' individual or group differences in teaching English: gender, age, learning period, proficience of words or sentences recognition, and language materials. 1. Experimental Design and Procedure There are a lot of processes treated in the experiment. A user is required to design the experiment in a series of stages, each containing a few steps. A user also implements and tests the stage before implementing the next stage. The procedure is to specify the design of the experiment and list all of the conditions, stimuli, and expected responses. A simple design is the lexical decision making experiment. The general examples of the independent variable are whether a letter string is an animal or a non-animal, a word or a non-word, and a verb or a noun. The stimuli can be text strings of animals and non-animals. Subjects are to respond as quickly as possible by pressing the "1" or "2" keys respectively. That is, a subject can press the key "1" for animal(cat, lion, monkey, etc.) or "2" for non-animal(apple, church, tree, etc.). [Figure 1] Procedure of Stimulus Display
Jaehwang Shim 317 The typical procedure means the sequence of trials that the subject experiences. This involves two things: specifying the sequence of events and connecting the design to the events. For example, in the lexical decision making experiment, the core experimental procedure is described such as the following. The subject is presented with a fixation(+) displayed in the center of the screen for one or two second. Then a probe display presents a letter string stimulus in the center of the screen for up to two seconds. The lexical decision making procedure can be specified in a list of events as follows: Select the stimulus from the DesignList and present the Trial Procedure which contains: Fixation, then Probe, and collect the response. For the fixation stimulus, a user must specify the fixed text for the fixation. This is conducted by typing the "+" in the text area of the Fixation TextDisplay object. [Figure 2] Display of TrialList The text varies from trial to trial for the stimulus presented. To specify a varying property, a user can create an attribute in a List object, assign values to the levels of the attribute, and then change the attribute in other objects. In this case, the text string is specified in the Stimulus attribute(column) of the DesignList. To change the attribute, enter the attribute name enclosed in square brackets[ ]. Entering [Stimulus] refers to the attribute stimulus that can be assigned multiple values such as "cat" or "apple." The stimulus attribute is entered into the text field of the Probe object to present different strings across trials. On a given trial, a row is selected from the List object, the value of the stimulus attribute is determined such as "cat" or "apple", and this value is substituted for [Stimulus] on the Probe object.
318 Software: E-Prime A series of display is presented at the beginning of the trial procedure so that the subject may practice the trials. Instructions is added to the Fixation display to show the subject the response keys. A display is also added prior to the Probe display, and Feedback display is added to the end of the trial procedure. 2. Trial Procedure After a tutorial on each test, a subject completes a practice series and then completes the actual experimental trials. Sense of vision can be stimulated with words, faces, diagrams, or pictures which can be presented on a computer screen in order to investigate visual information processing in the brain. For example, the first test may be a visual stimulus response task: After a delay, a cross stimulus(+) is presented in the center of a computer screen for two seconds. The subject should respond by pressing a key when he/she is presented each visual stimulus. The visual stimuli are shown on the screen for two seconds as a series of a simple word meaning animal/non-animal, or word/non-word. There can be 5-10 or 10-20 trials depending on the researcher's purpose on the project, and the language of stimuli presented can be decided in Korean or English words. All stimuli can be presented once or twice randomly in each procedure. The followings are the order of stimuli and the procedure of the practice. [Figure 3] The Order of Stimulus Display To run and verify the core experiment, the subject is presented with a fixation(+) displayed in the center of the screen for one second. Then a probe display presents a letter string stimulus in the center of the screen for up to two seconds. A user can expect to see two trials. He/She can see the first fixation for one second and then the word watermelon" for two seconds or until a response is entered. Then the fixation is presented again, and the second stimulus lion" is displayed until a response. During running the experiment, the stimulus is immediately removed when a response is entered. Though no response is entered, the stimulus is displayed for two seconds. The second test may be a auditory stimulus-response task. Sense of hearing can be stimulated with words, phrases, sentences, or any other acoustic stimulus to study
Jaehwang Shim 319 acoustic information. The subject has the same procedures and trials as the first visual test. The stimuli can be presented by the WAV sound file after two seconds of a cross stimulus(+). A researcher can present various types of stimuli in order to compare the results in each group: age, gender, language ability, etc. 3. Data Editing A researcher can examine and edit the data using the E-DataAid application. A user can open a particular data file loading in the file menu and conduct the data editing. The editing means that a researcher selects some data needed because there are so much amount of data load related to the experiment that he/she cannot treat all of them at the same time. E-DataAid also allows the data to be exported to a text file so that it can be imported by another application. This may be useful when performing further analysis in Excel, StatView, or some other application. The extract is the actual data selection from the E-DataAid experimented as a demonstration. The scope of the examination is defined to ten frequency only as an sample. The researcher intends to calculate the mean in RT, the number of error, or the stimuli types presented. The statistical analysis conduct the selective data in order that a researcher can investigate an individual or groups, and the comparison of the subjects. [Table 3] Data Selection Frequency Name Group Date CorrectResponse Probe.RT Type Stimulus 1 shim 1 11-03-2006 1 903 Animal lion 2 shim 1 11-03-2006 2 596 Nonanimal watermelon 3 shim 1 11-03-2006 2 809 Nonanimal watermelon 4 shim 1 11-03-2006 2 1041 Nonanimal watermelon 5 shim 1 11-03-2006 1 927 Animal lion 6 shim 1 11-03-2006 2 510 Nonanimal watermelon 7 shim 1 11-03-2006 1 616 Animal lion 8 shim 1 11-03-2006 1 678 Animal lion 9 shim 1 11-03-2006 1 861 Animal lion 10 shim 1 11-03-2006 2 594 Nonanimal watermelon Other basic investigation can be a group analysis separately such as children, young adults, or senior adults. A researcher can compare RT of each group in listening or reading in English and Korean. The dada show the correlation in the age of the early learners or late learners. The correlation between RT and duration of learning English
320 Software: E-Prime may or may not relate to the age groups. Furthermore, RT in age groups may show the significant results in reading as well as listening. The complicated and various data analysis can be treated through selecting and editing practice. IV. CONCLUSION A number of studies have examined some morphometric differences on cognitive tasks. The studies are to find out the relationship between individual differences in speed-ofprocessing measures such as response time (RT). Structural brain imaging studies with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reveal large individual differences in brain size and morphometry in normal subjects (Allen, Damasio, & Grabowski, 2001; Good et al., 2001). While functional MRI is a new neuroimaging method that detects focal blood flow change associated with neural activation (Haier, et al., 2005). E-Prime installed in MRI aims at response time and is a potentially useful software to study language dominance in individuals or groups by examining the response time. With the application, a researcher can evaluate the determination of language dominance and assess differences in language perception according to activation task or activated stimulus (Schneider, 1989 & Schneider et al., 1993). That is, a researcher can test learner's response time by programming simple visual and auditory stimuli. It also measures memory recognition in language task. The stimulus on the language experiments can be obtained from subjects during word generation tasks such as noun/verb, animal/non-animal, or word/non-word. The software, however, has not been applied to the field of language education, teaching two languages such as Korean and English. If the result of E-Prime test can be applied to the language teaching, it provides standardized and precise data such as a suitable period of learning a second language, first or second language interference, and linguistic variable factors in learning a second language. E-Prime is designed to match the way for an experienced investigator in psychology and neuroscience, but it is valuable software as a basement in analyzing the exact data from the second language learning and teaching. The device, however, is hard to design the trials that a researcher intends, and programming them requires specific skills in understanding other fields, psychology and neurology. As a result, a research should be conducted effectively as a co-work with the areas related.
Jaehwang Shim 321 Machine Requirements for E-Prime: The full requires approximately 100 MB disk space listed below. Windows 98/ME Pentium III 64 MB RAM Hard Drive (100 MB free for full install) PCI/AGP Video Card with DirectXTM compatible driver support and 8 MB+VRAM 17-21 SVGA Monitor PCI Sound Card with DirectXTM compatible driver support and option for on-board memory Network Adapter CD-ROM REFERENCES Allen, J. S., Damasio, H., & Grabowski, T. J. (2002). Normal neuroanatomical variation in the human brain: An MRI-volumetric study. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 118, 341-358. Busey, T. A., & Loftus, G. R. (1994). Sensory and cognitive components of visual information acquisition. Psychology Review, 10, 446-449. Good, C. D., Johnsrude, I. S., Ashburner, J., Henson, R. N. A., Friston, K. J., & Frackowiak, R. S. J. (2001). A voxel-based morphometric study of ageing in 465 normal adult human brains. Neuro-Image, 14, 21-36. Haier, R. J., Jung, R.. E., Yeo, R. A., Head, K., & Alkere, M. T. (2005). Structural brain variation, age, and response time. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience. 2005, 5 (2), 246-251. Psychology Software Tools Inc. (2002). E-Prime. Pittsburgh, PA. http://www.pstnet.com. Schneider, W. (1989). Enhancing a standard experimental delivery system (MEL) for advanced psychological experimentation. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 21(2), 240-244. Schneider, W. Zuccolotto, A., & Tirone, S. T. (1993). Time-stamping computer events to report.1 msec accuracy of events in the Micro Experimental Laboratory. Behavior, Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 25, 276-280.
322 Software: E-Prime Schneider, W., Eschman, A., & Zuccolotto, A. (2002). E-Prime User's Guide, & Reference Guide. Pittsburgh: Psychology Software Tools Inc. The E-Studio Graphical Interface. (2006). http://www.pstnet.com/products/e-prime/ e-studio. Ulrich, R., & Miller, J. (1994). Effects of truncation on reaction time analysis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 34-80. Wickens, C. D. (1992). Engineering psychology and human performance. New York: Harper Collins. E-Prime_E-Studio. (2006). Retrieved March 10, 2006, from the World Wide Web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Neuroscience. (2006). Retrieved March 10, 2006, from the World Wide Web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki Key words: software, language perception, visual input, aural input Author: Shim, Jaehwang (Chung-Ang University); julyshim@hanmail.net received: September 10, 2006 accepted: November 15, 2006