Compound Stimulus

Description

A compound stimulus is a container for other stimuli. When displayed, it simply renders its child stimuli. For example, the following compound stimulus reproduces the flag of Ireland:

compound irish_flag {
    rectangle green_rect (
        color = 0.0075, 0.3278, 0.1221
        x_size = 4
        y_size = 6
        x_position = -4
        )

    rectangle white_rect (
        color = 1.0, 1.0, 1.0
        x_size = 4
        y_size = 6
        x_position = 0
        )

    rectangle orange_rect (
        color = 1.0, 0.2462, 0.0482
        x_size = 4
        y_size = 6
        x_position = +4
        )
}

Compound stimuli simplify management of groups of stimuli that should always be displayed together. Instead of loading, unloading, queuing, or dequeuing each member of a group individually, you can load, unload, queue, or dequeue just the compound stimulus that contains them. For example, you can display the above stimulus as follows:

queue_stimulus (irish_flag)
update_display ()

Signature

stimulus/compound

Optional Parameters

deferred

Options:

no

yes

explicit

Default:

no

Controls when the stimulus is loaded. If no, the stimulus is loaded at experiment load time. If yes, the stimulus is loaded the first time it is queued. If explicit, the stimulus must be loaded explictly with Load Stimulus.

display

Name of the display on which the stimulus will be presented. If omitted, the default display (if available) will be used.

Placement

Allowed at top level:	Yes
Allowed parent:	Compound Stimulus, Folder, Frame List Stimulus, Layer Stimulus, List Replicator, Movie Stimulus, Range Replicator, Stimulus Group
Allowed children:	Stimulus