What is EPrime?

E-Prime is an authoring package for setting up computerized psychology experiments, sold by PST. It permits precise, low level control of computer hardware to achieve millisecond accurate timing of stimulus presentation and response collection.

Eprime: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly

The Good

• Stimulus presentation synchronized with screen refresh with millisecond accuracy
• Easier to learn and use than conventional programming languages
• Presentation of images, text, and sound
• Recording of responses from mouse, keyboard, response box, microphone
• Other responses possible using response box interface or parallel/serial port
• Able to log timing details of all events and responses into ASCII spreadsheet
• E-Prime Biological can "talk" with EGI Netstation 2 for marking events etc.
• Can be synchronized with scanner with a TTL level input
• Can output marker codes to other psychophysiological recording equipment
• Can control the SMI Eyetracking system

The Bad

• Cannot easily present video stimuli
• Makes some assumptions about basic experimental paradigm - lacks some flexbility

The Ugly

• Can simulate video with rapid single image presentation
• Can using scripting to add flexibility
• If one method doesn't work, usually it's possible to kludge something together that does work