Excel Responses File - Failure

[petrocjv]

I'm using MediaLab 2006 and Windows Vista. I've programmed a responses file to feedback some score calsulated in Excel. I had it working yesterday, but today it doesn't work. I've got a fill in the blank event labeled "est1" and in Excel I have "est1" and then "f1" and "a1" - both of which get caluclated in Excel. Then on the next event in MediaLab I feedback the scores using "<f1>" and "". If data is entered into the fill in the blank event, the feedback screen displays for 7 seconds (as I've programmed it) but nothing is displayed (not the content nor the f1 and a1 values). Its very strange. Also, if I press Ctrl + -> (right arrow) during the "est1" fill in the blank event, the feedback frame content is displayed, but with values calculated as if 0 was entered into the fill in the blank event. So, if no response is given you get feedback, but if a respons is given you don't get any feedback - what gives? Has anyone had problems with this kind of thing? I'm beginning to think its not a Vista problem as the same occurs on an Windows XP computer. Also, I've kept the Excel file as a 2003-2007 file with the "xls" extension rather than the "xlsx" extension. John Petrocelli

[Trevor Newell]

Hm - it would seem that the problem is stemming from the value being stored as 'xxdots' rather than simply 'xx' - Because of this, each field can't appropriately calculate the required values. I've thought of two possible solutions for this problem:

1. Remove the extra characters from the end of the string. Ie. rather than 'xxdots', simply use 'xx'. You won't be able to have the text displayed with the fill-in-the-blank item; however you'll be able to properly save the value, and the value alone.

2. Change the way the other excel fields parse each variable. The current equation for B6 is as followed:

=IF(B2>B5,(100-(((B2-B5)/B5)*100)),(100-((B5-B2)/B5)*100))

If B2's value read 23dots, the equation above would fail. To overcome this, you could swap each B2 variable with the following:

INT(MID(B2,1,2))

This syntax will parse the value in the B2 cell, convert this parsed value to an integer, and then use the converted integer in the equation. The original equation would then look like:

=IF(INT(MID(B2,1,2))>B5,(100-(((INT(MID(B2,1,2))-B5)/B5)*100)),(100-((B5-INT(MID(B2,1,2)))/B5)*100))

You'll need to do this for each 'est' variable.

Does this help solve the problem? Please let me know if you have any additional questions or if I can help in any way.

[Kyle_Irwin]

Hi There,
I'm having a similar issue as the one stated above...during the experiment participants make a couple of decisions and as a result earn points. In the study I twice show how many points they've earned as a result of their own and (fictitious) others' choices. The screen and calculated values for the first decision work fine. However, the screen that's supposed to show calculated values after the second decision is blank (screen 63) - that is, no text or calculated values appear.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Kyle