Interruptible flag

Support
1

Hi Chris,

I’m curious, what does the interruptible flag do for task_system_states in MWorks (c.f. below)?

<task_system_state tag=“Fix Wait” interruptible=“YES”>

Thanks,

Seth

2

Hi Seth,

The interruptible parameter is supported by all paradigm components (protocol, block, trial, list, task system, and task system state). Setting it to NO prevents the experiment from begin paused or stopped while that component (or any of its child components) is executing. If you attempt to pause or stop within a non-interruptible component, then the pause or stop won’t take effect until the component’s execution completes.

One situation where this feature is useful is when dispensing a reward to an animal. If the sequence of actions is:

  1. Start the juice pump
  2. Wait for some amount of time
  3. Stop the juice pump

then you don’t want the experiment paused/stopped between the execution of steps 1 and 3. Putting all three actions inside, say, a list with interruptible="NO" prevents this from happening.

Cheers,
Chris