Online Timing Accuracy and Precision: A comparison of platforms, browsers, and participant's devices

Author:

Anwyl-Irvine Alexander LeslieORCID,Dalmaijer Edwin S.ORCID,Hodges Nick,Evershed Jo

Abstract

Due to its increasing ease-of-use and ability to quickly collect large samples, online behavioral research is currently booming. With this increasing popularity, it is important that researchers are aware of who online participants are, and what devices and software they use to access experiments. While it is somewhat obvious that these factors can impact data quality, it remains unclear how big this problem is. To understand how these characteristics impact experiment presentation and data quality, we performed a battery of automated tests on a number of representative setups. We investigated how different web-building platforms (Gorilla, jsPsych, Lab.js, and psychoJS/PsychoPy3), browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari), and operating systems (mac OS and Windows 10) impact display time across 30 different frame durations for each software combination. In addition, we employed a robot actuator in representative setups to measure response recording across aforementioned platforms, and between different keyboard types (desktop and integrated laptop). We then surveyed over 200 000 participants on their demographics, technology, and software to provide context to our findings. We found that modern web-platforms provide a reasonable accuracy and precision for display duration and manual response time, but also identify specific combinations that produce unexpected variance and delays. While no single platform stands out as the best in all features and conditions, our findings can help researchers make informed decisions about which experiment building platform is most appropriate in their situation, and what equipment their participants are likely to have.

Publisher

Center for Open Science

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3