goxpyriment

Change Blindness — Rensink Flicker Paradigm

Demonstrates change blindness: large changes to a visual scene are surprisingly hard to detect when the change is hidden by a brief blank interval between alternating images. Participants press Space as soon as they spot the change.

A 5×5 grid of coloured squares flickers between two versions (A and A′) with blank screens in between. Exactly one cell differs in colour between A and A′. The flicker cycle repeats until the participant responds or a 10-second timeout occurs.

Timing (Rensink formula)

Phase Duration
Image A 240 ms
Blank 80 ms
Image A′ 240 ms
Blank 80 ms

Running

go run main.go          # fullscreen
go run main.go -d       # windowed (development)
go run main.go -d -s 1  # windowed, subject ID 1

Flags

Flag Default Description
-d off Development mode: windowed 1024×768
-s 0 Participant ID

Controls / Response keys

Key Meaning
Space Change detected

If no response is given within 10 seconds the trial is recorded as a miss.

Output

Data are saved to goxpy_data/ as a .xpd file. One row per trial:

Column Description
trial Trial number
change_row Row index of the changed cell (0-based)
change_col Column index of the changed cell (0-based)
color_before Cell colour in image A
color_after Cell colour in image A′
rt_ms Reaction time in milliseconds (−1 if timed out)
detected true if participant responded within the timeout

References

Rensink, R. A., O’Regan, J. K., & Clark, J. J. (1997). To see or not to see: The need for attention to perceive changes in scenes. Psychological Science, 8(5), 368–373.