csvsaveoutputpsychopysaving-data

Psychopy: how to avoid to store variables in the csv file?


When I run my PsychoPy experiment, PsychoPy saves a CSV file that contains my trials and the values of my variables.

Among these, there are some variables I would like to NOT be included. There are some variables which I decided to include in the CSV, but many others which automatically felt in it.

  1. is there a way to manually force (from the code block) the exclusion of some variables in the CSV?
  2. is there a way to decide the order of the saved columns/variables in the CSV?

It is not really important and I know I could just create myself an output file without using the one of PsychoPy, or I can easily clean it afterwards but I was just curious.


Solution

  • PsychoPy spits out all the variables it thinks you could need. If you want to drop some of them, that is a task for the analysis stage, and is easily done in any processing pipeline. Unless you are analysing data in a spreadsheet (which you really shouldn't), the number of columns in the output file shouldn't really be an issue. The philosophy is that you shouldn't back yourself into a corner by discarding data at the recording stage - what about the reviewer who asks about the influence of a variable that you didn't think was important?

    If you are using the Builder interface, the saving of onset & offset times for each component is optional, and is controlled in the "data" tab of each component dialog.

    The order of variables is also not under direct control of the user, but again, can be easily manipulated at the analysis stage.

    As you note, you can of course write code to save custom output files of your own design.