QT-arithmetic_study

Qt/PyQt5 arithmetic difficulty study that sends LSL markers for each trigger.

Quickstart

1. Create a virtual environment and install dependencies.
2. Run the experiment from the Arithmetic_Difficulty directory so the question set is found.

python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
pip install -r requirements.txt
cd Arithmetic_Difficulty
python mainExperiment.py

Requirements

• Python 3.9+
• OS: Windows (developed on Windows 11 Professional)
• PyQt5, pylsl, numpy (see requirements.txt)
• A GUI display server (X11/Wayland on Linux)
• An LSL recorder/receiver if you want to capture markers
• On some Linux setups, pylsl may require a separate liblsl install

Reproducibility notes

• The experiment loads a pickled question set from a file named GeneratedQuestions in the current working directory.
• To keep runs reproducible, run from Arithmetic_Difficulty and use Arithmetic_Difficulty/GeneratedQuestions.
• MakeQuestions.py regenerates a question set using Python's random module with no fixed seed. Use the bundled GeneratedQuestions file if you need identical stimuli.
• The app does not write output files; all trial information is emitted as LSL string markers on the arithmetic-Markers stream.

References

• H. B. G. Thomas (1963), Communication theory and the constellation hypothesis of calculation, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 15:3, 173-191. DOI: 10.1080/17470216308416323

Regenerating question sets

cd Arithmetic_Difficulty
python MakeQuestions.py

Docker (optional)

This example targets Linux hosts with an X11 server. You may need an X server or WSLg on Windows/macOS.

docker build -t qt-arithmetic .
xhost +local:docker
docker run --rm -it --network host \
  -e DISPLAY=$DISPLAY \
  -e QT_X11_NO_MITSHM=1 \
  -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix \
  qt-arithmetic

Citation

See CITATION.cff for citation metadata. Update it with a DOI after creating the Zenodo record.