E-Prime (software)

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E-Prime

E-Studio interface
Developer:	Psychology Software Tools
Latest release:	1.1 / Oct 23, 2003
OS:	Microsoft Windows
Use:	IDE
License:	Commercial
Website:	http://www.pstnet.com/

E-Prime, developed by Psychology Software Tools (PST), is a commercial suite of applications which comprehensively 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. While these experiments can be created using any programming language, E-Prime (along with its competitors... see below for more detail) greatly simplifies the technical challenges inherent in programming any application. E-Prime offers its users control over almost every aspect of paradigm creation. Additionally, E-Prime is temporally accurate to within a few milliseconds, a crucial aspect of control for many research needs. One of the benefits to E-Prime is its large user base; the E-Prime software has been in existence since 1996 and has reached over 10,000 users in that time. As such, PST is able to direct the development of its product based on the feedback of a large group of users.

1 The E-Prime Application Suite
2 User Experience
3 External links

[edit] The E-Prime Application Suite

The E-Prime suite of applications gives the user control over every aspect inherent to data collection in a research study. The core system includes: E-Studio, E-Basic, E-Run, E-Merge, E-DataAid, and E-Recovery.

[edit] E-Studio

E-Studio is program used for paradigm creation. Here users will define the temporal layout of their study, as well as define all parameters they want included within each subject's dataset.

[edit] E-Basic

For those users who require more advanced capabilities than be obtained through the E-Studio graphical interface, the E-Basic programming language - nearly identical to Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications - is available. Using this language, users can implement highly complex paradigms and record measurements from virtually any aspect of the program.

[edit] E-Run

This program is installed on the testing computer (the computer with which the subject will interact) and actually compiles and runs the paradigm created earlier.

[edit] E-Merge

From the PST website:

This application allows you to quickly and easily combine your single session data files into multi-session data files. E-Merge also keeps 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.

[edit] E-DataAid

When a subject completes an experiment, E-Prime saves the data from that experiment in a specialized file. Using E-DataAid, users can view the data that was saved from the experimental run, and, if they want, send the data to other applications. E-DataAid also gives you the ability to calculate basic statistical information such as the mean accuracy, etc... through the analyze feature (Menu-->Tools-->Analyze). It's amazing how few people use the wonderful filtering features of this program to clean up their data.

[edit] E-Recovery

Sometimes users abort a session in the middle of a trial, or possibly a computer glitch might cause the experiment to be interrupted. In such a situation, users can use this program to recover some of the information that was gathered already.

[edit] User Experience

Although E-Prime is widely used, it has been criticized for its highly idiosyncratic user interface and its comparatively high price. To that end, there are various alternatives (some of them free) to E-Prime, including DMDX, EXPE, Presentation, PsyScope and Vision Egg.