free-sort¶

Current version: 1.0.3. See version history.

The free-sort plugin displays one or more images on the screen that the participant can interact with by clicking and dragging with a mouse, or touching and dragging with a touchscreen device. When the trial starts, the images can be positioned outside or inside the sort area. All images must be moved into the sorting area before the participant can click a button to end the trial. All of the moves that the participant performs are recorded, as well as the final positions of all images. This plugin could be useful when asking participants to position images based on similarity to one another, or to recall image spatial locations.

Parameters¶

In addition to the parameters available in all plugins, this plugin accepts the following parameters. Parameters with a default value of undefined must be specified. Other parameters can be left unspecified if the default value is acceptable.

Parameter	Type	Default Value	Description
stimuli	array	undefined	Each element of this array is an image path.
stim_height	numeric	100	The height of the images in pixels.
stim_width	numeric	100	The width of the images in pixels.
scale_factor	numeric	1.5	How much larger to make the stimulus while moving (1 = no scaling).
sort_area_height	numeric	800	The height of the container that participants can move the stimuli in. Stimuli will be constrained to this area.
sort_area_width	numeric	800	The width of the container that participants can move the stimuli in. Stimuli will be constrained to this area.
sort_area_shape	string	"ellipse"	The shape of the sorting area, can be "ellipse" or "square".
prompt	string	null	This string can contain HTML markup. The intention is that it can be used to provide a reminder about the action the participant is supposed to take (e.g., which key to press).
prompt_location	string	"above"	Indicates whether to show the prompt `"above"` or `"below"` the sorting area.
button_label	string	'Continue'	The text that appears on the button to continue to the next trial.
change_border_background_color	boolean	true	If `true`, the sort area border color will change while items are being moved in and out of the sort area, and the background color will change once all items have been moved into the sort area. If `false`, the border will remain black and the background will remain white throughout the trial.
border_color_in	string	'#a1d99b'	If `change_border_background_color` is `true`, the sort area border will change to this color when an item is being moved into the sort area, and the background will change to this color when all of the items have been moved into the sort area.
border_color_out	string	'#fc9272'	If `change_border_background_color` is `true`, this will be the color of the sort area border when there are one or more items that still need to be moved into the sort area.
border_width	numeric	null	The width in pixels of the border around the sort area. If `null`, the border width will be 3% of the `sort_area_height`.
counter_text_unfinished	string	You still need to place %n% item%s% inside the sort area.	Text to display when there are one or more items that still need to be placed in the sort area. If "%n%" is included in the string, it will be replaced with the number of items that still need to be moved inside. If "%s%" is included in the string, a "s" will be included when the number of items remaining is greater than one.
counter_text_finished	string	All items placed. Feel free to reposition items if necessary.	Text that will take the place of the counter_text_unfinished text when all items have been moved inside the sort area.
stim_starts_inside	boolean	false	If `false`, the images will be positioned to the left and right of the sort area when the trial loads. If `true`, the images will be positioned at random locations inside the sort area when the trial loads.
column_spread_factor	numeric	1	When the images appear outside the sort area, this determines the x-axis spread of the image columns. Default value is 1. Values less than 1 will compress the image columns along the x-axis, and values greater than 1 will spread them farther apart.

Data Generated¶

In addition to the default data collected by all plugins, this plugin collects the following data for each trial.

Name	Type	Value
init_locations	array	An array containing objects representing the initial locations of all the stimuli in the sorting area. Each element in the array represents a stimulus, and has a "src", "x", and "y" value. "src" is the image path, and "x" and "y" are the object location. This will be encoded as a JSON string when data is saved using the `.json()` or `.csv()` functions.
moves	array	An array containing objects representing all of the moves the participant made when sorting. Each object represents a move. Each element in the array has a "src", "x", and "y" value. "src" is the image path, and "x" and "y" are the object location after the move. This will be encoded as a JSON string when data is saved using the `.json()` or `.csv()` functions.
final_locations	array	An array containing objects representing the final locations of all the stimuli in the sorting area. Each element in the array represents a stimulus, and has a "src", "x", and "y" value. "src" is the image path, and "x" and "y" are the object location. This will be encoded as a JSON string when data is saved using the `.json()` or `.csv()` functions.
rt	numeric	The response time in milliseconds for the participant to finish all sorting.

Simulation Mode¶

This plugin does not yet support simulation mode.

Install¶

Using the CDN-hosted JavaScript file:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/@jspsych/plugin-free-sort@1.0.3"></script>

Using the JavaScript file downloaded from a GitHub release dist archive:

<script src="jspsych/plugin-free-sort.js"></script>

Using NPM:

npm install @jspsych/plugin-free-sort

import freeSort from '@jspsych/plugin-free-sort';

Examples¶

Basic example

CodeDemo

var sort_trial = {
    type: jsPsychFreeSort,
    stimuli: sorting_stimuli,
    stim_width: 80,
    stim_height: 60,
    sort_area_width: 500,
    sort_area_height: 500,
    prompt: "<p>Click and drag the images below to sort them so that similar items are close together.</p>"
};

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