How to add a break in a trial loop in PsychoPy

Question

I'm learning how to work with PsychoPy. My problem is that I cannot add a break in a trial loop within another loop.

Situation: There are two stimuli lists: ListA.xlsx and ListB.xlsx. Both lists contain 20 sentences. A third list ('AB.xlsx') refers to block A ('ListA.xlsx') and block B ('ListB.xlsx').

When I start the experiment, PsychoPy runs through the twenty sentences of ListA.xlsx in a loop. After block A, the experiment stops for a break. The participant can continue the experiment by pressing the spacebar. When the experiment resumes, PsychoPy runs through the twenty sentences of ListB.xlsx in a loop.

For the block break, I'm using the following code:

if blocks.thisTrialN not in [1] :
    continueRoutine=False

Problem: What I want to add is a break within block A and within block B, i.e. I want to add a break after 10 sentences. I've already tried many different things, but I don't get it to work.

I'd appreciate any advice!

Answer 1

In your "break" routine, insert a code component and put something like this in its "begin routine" tab:

if currentLoop.thisN != 9: # NB counting is 0-based
    continueRoutine = False

Builder maintains a variable named currentLoop to refer to whatever loop is currently running, so this code and routine can be re-used in any loop in your experiment, without needing to refer to the name of the specific loop that is enclosing it.