PsychoPy—Psychophysics software in Python

By Jonathan Westley Peirce. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 2007

4,463 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The vast majority of studies into visual processing are conducted using computer display technology. The current paper describes a new free suite of software tools designed to make this task easier, using the latest advances in hardware and software. PsychoPy is a platform-independent experimental control system written in the Python interpreted language using entirely free libraries. PsychoPy scripts are designed to be extremely easy to read and write, while retaining complete power for the user to customize the stimuli and environment. Tools are provided within the package to allow everything from stimulus presentation and response collection (from a wide range of devices) to simple data analysis such as psychometric function fitting. Most importantly, PsychoPy is highly extensible and the whole system can evolve via user contributions. If a user wants to add support for a particular stimulus, analysis or hardware device they can look at the code for existing examples, modify them and submit the modifications back into the package so that the whole community benefits.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/68a445e3773782b620301787e355c599bab00f62

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cognitive Neuroscience

Citations in the corpus

PsychoPy2: Experiments in behavior made easy (2019, methodology): “It developed a small following of Python enthusiasts in the field, and gradually it grew to provide further stimuli and features (Peirce, 2007, 2009).”
A comparison of fMRI adaptation and multivariate pattern classification analysis in visual cortex (2010, positive): “Stimuli were generated using the open-source package PsychoPy (Peirce, 2007) and were backprojected from an LCD projector at a resolution of 1024 × 768 pixels to a screen sited at the feet of the subject.”
Eye tracking cognitive load using pupil diameter and microsaccades with fixed gaze (2018, methodology): “The main experiment procedure was created in PsychoPy [46].”
PsyToolkit: A software package for programming psychological experiments using Linux (2010, background): “Today, there are a number of cross-platform solutions that have been reviewed elsewhere, such as PyEPL (Geller, Schleifer, Sederberg, Jacobs, & Kahana, 2007), PsychoPy (Peirce, 2007), Vision Egg (Straw, 2008), and TScope (Stevens, Lammertyn, Verbruggen, & Van dierendonck, 2006).”
OpenSesame: An open-source, graphical experiment builder for the social sciences (2011, methodology): “psycho Yes PsychoPy in Pyglet window mode (Peirce, 2007) Behav Res (2012) 44:314–324 319”
The Psychology Experiment Building Language (PEBL) and PEBL Test Battery (2013, background): “A number of alternate existing systems are based on the popular open-source interpreted Python language (see Geller, 2007; Peirce, 2007; Straw, 2008; Kotter, 2009; Krause & Lindemann, in press), which may have a lower barrier to entry for developers.”
The visual ecology of product packaging and its effects on consumer attention (2020, methodology): “The experimental stimuli are presented using PsychoPy 2 (Peirce, 2009, 2007).”
PsyPhy: A Psychophysics Driven Evaluation Framework for Visual Recognition (2016, methodology): “Inspired by software frameworks for subject testing like PsychoPy [41], we have implemented the 2AFC and MAFC procedures described above using a Python framework for model testing called PsyPhy.”
The attentional cost of receiving a cell phone notification. (2015, methodology): “7, and used functions from the PsychoPy package (Peirce, 2007).”
PyGaze: An open-source, cross-platform toolbox for minimal-effort programming of eyetracking experiments (2014, methodology): “Creating experiments has rapidly become easier over the past few years, especially with the introduction of graphical experiment builders (GEBs; Forster & Forster, 2003; Mathôt, Schreij, & Theeuwes, 2012; Peirce, 2007; Schneider, 1988; Stahl, 2006).”
The Lifespan Human Connectome Project in Development: A large-scale study of brain connectivity development in 5–21 year olds (2018, positive): “This practice session, coded in Psychopy (Peirce, 2007), includes general guidelines about the scanner environment, a preview of the resting state MRI scan instructions, and guided practice for each of the fMRI tasks.”
Introducing Parselmouth: A Python interface to Praat (2018, methodology): “An introduction to staircase experimental design (e.g., Kaernbach, 2001) and to the details of PsychoPy’s implementation of this class of experimental designs, can be found in a PsychoPy tutorial on measuring just-noticeable-differences, “Measuring a JND using a staircase procedure”46.”
Presentation and validation of the Radboud Faces Database (2010, methodology): “The validation study was programmed using PsychoPy (Peirce, 2007), a python library for conducting psychological experiments.”
The role of cognitive inhibition in different components of arithmetic (2015, methodology): “The arithmetic and inhibition tasks were created using PsychoPy software (Peirce 2007) and run on an HP laptop computer.”
The Curvature Effect (2016, methodology): “Stimuli and experiment were created using python and Psychopy (Peirce, 2007).”
Voluntary language switching: When and why do bilinguals switch between their languages? (2018, methodology): “The task was presented using Psychopy 1.83.04 (Peirce, 2007).”
The reliability paradox: Why robust cognitive tasks do not produce reliable individual differences (2017, methodology): “The stop-signal task was implemented using STOP-IT (Verbruggen, Logan, & Stevens, 2008), all other tasks were implemented in PsychoPy (Peirce, 2007, 2013).”