Create a "decline to respond" option?

[jarvis24]

My advisor and I want to use horizontal scaled response items with a "decline to answer" option. The simplest way to do this, of course, is to simply have an option labeled "decline to answer." But the thing is, we'd like that option to be set apart from the other options in such a way that it won't appear to the participants like its part of the scale. We've wondered if there was a way to do this by, perhaps, physically distancing it from the scale, or by inserting a line between it and the scale.
Is there a solution to this problem?

[Sarah]

How do I create a "decline to respond" option with a fill-in-the-blank? I would also be willing to put in the "continue" button as an option to let people advance without answering.

[jarvis24]

Separating the 'Decline' button from the others
You can manually set the location of any given button by placing top and left parameter values after the text label like:

decline to answer (t.8,l.5)

Another Option
You could also enter "decline to answer" in the *button* label field (e.g., as opposed to "6" or whatever) and widen it by adding a width parameter to the top and left ones you now and entering "none" as the text label

none (t.8,l.5,w50)

This way, you have a nice "decline to answer" *button* separated from the rest of the item options.

Fill-in-the-blanks
For fill-in the blank items, you normally have to type something to continue otherwise you get a prompt to do so. You can change this. The instructions for how to do it are contained in this file (be sure to follow the instructions carefully!):

C:\MediaLab\Styles\messages.txt

In your case, you could replace:

103,"It would be ideal if you were to type something before continuing.", fill in the blank

with:

103,"", fill in the blank

That will tell MediaLab to skip the prompt and allow subjects to continue without a response.

IMPORANT--Be sure to place the substitute.txt file in YOUR experiment folder unless you want the changes to affect ALL experiments.