Implementation of stimuli with millisecond timing accuracy in online experiments

Zhengguo Gao; Biao Chen; Tianwen Sun; Haoqiang Chen; Kai Wang; Peipei Xuan; Zhen Liang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0235249

Implementation of stimuli with millisecond timing accuracy in online experiments

PLoS One. 2020 Jul 10;15(7):e0235249. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0235249. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Zhengguo Gao¹, Biao Chen¹, Tianwen Sun¹, Haoqiang Chen², Kai Wang³, Peipei Xuan⁴, Zhen Liang¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Life Science, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui Province, People's Republic of China.
² Department of Computer Science, School of Humanistic Medicine, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui Province, People's Republic of China.
³ Laboratory of Cognitive Neuropsychology, Department of Medical Psychology, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui Province, People's Republic of China.
⁴ School of Foreign Languages, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, Anhui Province, People's Republic of China.

Abstract

Online experiments are growing in popularity. This study aimed to determine the timing accuracy of web technologies and investigate whether they can be used to support high temporal precision psychology experiments. A dynamic sinusoidal grating and flashes were produced by setInterval, CSS3, and requestAnimationFrame (hereafter, rAF) technologies. They were run at normal or real-time priority processing in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Internet Explorer on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Timing accuracies were compared with that of Psychtoolbox which was chosen as gold standard. It was found that rAF with real-time priority had the best timing accuracy compared to the other web technologies and had a similar timing accuracy as Psychtoolbox in traditional experiments in most cases. However, rAF exhibited poor timing accuracy on Linux. Therefore, rAF can be used as technical basis for accuracy of millisecond timing sequences in online experiments, thereby benefiting the psychology field.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Data Collection / instrumentation*
Data Collection / methods
Feasibility Studies
Humans
Internet-Based Intervention*
Psychology, Experimental / instrumentation*
Psychology, Experimental / methods
Reaction Time / physiology*
Time Factors
Web Browser*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31400943) and Scientific Research Fundation of the Institute for Translational Medicine of Anhui Province (2017zhyx28).