welcome to our old site
as of march, 2005, we have moved to the all new
www.empirisoft.com
rip, our beloved, circa 1998
version, for eternity here at
old.empirisoft.com
if you ended up here via mistake or crazy link,
please let us know. in the meantime, feel free to stroll our
gardens and take in all the refreshing empirisoft days of yore
namaste
Here, you can see what other researchers think
of
MediaLab
and DirectRT See a complete
list
of links to our academic customers.
If you are a current user, please let
us know if you have a review or some comments you would like to
add to this page.
from the
SPSP
discussion group, January 8, 2001:
Dear Colleagues,
It has been a couple of weeks that I have
asked you for experiences with
lab software. Your responses were most informative. Many thanks for
your help! Here is
a short and impressionistic summary that is, of course, highly biased by the self-selection of the respondents: Over all, of the some twenty replies that we have
received, there seems to be a strong preference
for MediaLab and the corresponding RT tool named
DirectRT. Only strong suggestions in favour of MediaLab were
reported, literally every respondent who was using MediaLab seemed
to be pleased with it. A different picture has
emerged for other software: Unfortunately, very few respondents
seemed to have first-hand experience with EPrime. There still
seem to be some problems in adapting old MEL programs. Supposedly, the
programming code has not changed that much and still seems to be less intuitive than the easy-to-use, clickable tools of
MediaLab. Nevertheless, the RT
measuring tool of EPrime seems to be comfortable and exact - something we do not know for Inquisit and Superlab, programs
that seem to be less widely
distributed. In
sum, both EPrime and MediaLab seem to have good RT-tools that work properly and yield accurate results in the
"not so easy to handle" windows
environment.
Best Regards,
Fritz
Strack
Universitaet Wuerzburg, Germany
A stunning breakthrough: at last a software
package is able to bring the vivid possibilities of computer multimedia to the laboratory,
and all without any advanced programming skills required. Putting a questionnaire onto a
PC has never been easier. With color, font, image and other formatting so effortlessly
manipulated, MediaLab raises the computer experiment to a whole new aesthetic level.
Neal
Roese
University of Illinois, UC
MediaLab is a fantastic software tool that
allows graduate students with a minimum level of computer expertise to program their own
relatively complex multi-media experiments. Students find the program to be not only
extraordinarily useful, but fun to interact with as well. As a result of the popularity of
MediaLab experiments in our lab, we are doubling the number of computer work stations for
conducting studies.
Richard E. Petty
Ohio State University
MediaLab and DirectRT have been extremely
useful for our research in the past several years. My lab had used other
experimental software in the past, and we had found the experience
excruciating. DirectRT, which we use for our
response time research is very user friendly. I require that students
who work in my lab learn to use it before getting started with their
research, and this has never been an impediment to a quick start. I am
very pleased with MediaLab and DirectRT and
recommend them highly.
John Bassili
University of Toronto
I've been using MediaLab and DirectRT in my lab for the past 3 1/2
years and am thrilled with both packages. They are very flexible and
user-friendly (i.e., minimal programming). I
toyed around with other software packages and
found them to be less flexible and much more difficult to program. I
highly recommend MediaLab and DirectRT!
Lowell Gaertner
University of Tennessee
In general I have liked using DirectRT and MediaLab very much. The
programs are easy to learn and intuitive for researchers (and especially
research assistants) who might have little to no programming experience.
The customer support has been outstanding, and in my view is the best in
the industry.
Bruce Bartholow
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
This is the most user friendly program that I have ever used (and I
have tried many). To me, the most impressive quality about it is that I
can train students in how to use it in a very short period of time. This
is a boon to anyone teaching research methods where students are
devising their own experiments. Using MediaLab
has made my students excited to do research as it does not limit the
type of stimuli material they need to use. The reaction time measure in
the basic module represents a great way to blend current social
cognition methodology into design and is also a commendable feature. The
technical support is wonderful, and the fact that the head programmer is
very accessible give the user a lot of comfort. This program is THE way
to do computer research!!!
Regan Gurung
University of Wisconsin, Green Bay
I've tried the DirectRT implementation of the IAT.
It worked like a charm and has an appearance very similar to the lab
procedures we've been using for the last few years.
Anthony Greenwald, Co-Creator of the IAT
University of Washington
Of all lab software packages I have used now,
MediaLab and DirectRT were not only the most flexible tools, but also
the ones which were most easy to handle. The
programming is so easy that even an inexperienced research
assistant can create basic experiments within a day of practice.
And the two programs are capable of combining
nearly any kind of stimulus and response you
may wish to use for your research. Most importantly, the
service provided by empirisoft is exceptional. In fact, I
can't think of any better lab software for psychological
research.
Bertram Gawronski
Northwestern University
I plan on purchasing MediaLab for 31
machines. I'm sold on your product! You really don't have any competition. This is easily
the best product on the market for researchers interested in running computerized
experiments.
Stephen M. Smith
North
Georgia College
We often look at effort or time on a task,
and MediaLab has a built-in feature that unobtrusively allows us to get timed data for any
aspect of our study - everything from time spent reading stimulus materials to completion
of individual dependent measures. My graduate students have found programming in
MediaLab
to be very easy to learn. They have been able to begin running studies within days of
being introduced to the program. It has cut the amount of time required to prepare an
experiment in half; we no longer need to create multiple versions of the experimental
materials or waste time at the copy machine to produce them. It has eliminated the need
for data entry or conversion - the data are automatically stored in SPSS and Excel formats
and ready for analysis. We also have noticed that research participants seem to be more
engaged in experiments using MediaLab. MediaLab has greatly facilitated the research being
conducted in my lab.
Gifford Weary
Ohio State University
Perhaps the most exciting thing about
MediaLab software is its potential to expand the types of research questions we can
address. MediaLab gives researchers the full benefits of interactivity -- both in
presenting information and in assessing responses.
Sharon Shavitt
University of Illinois,
UC
MediaLab and DirectRT have greatly improved the efficiency of work in
my lab. I'm able to present a wide variety of experimental stimuli,
including video, audio, still photos, web pages, etc. in a very precise
and controlled environment. I've also found that I have had a better
success rate, with my experiments being more likely to result in good
data. I attribute this to greater control in presenting experimental
stimuli, and less room for experimenter variability in the presentation
of information.
Bryan Gibson
Central Michigan University
I have worked with a variety of experimental
design software packages in the past, and I
have found DirectRT to be the most
user-friendly program that I have encountered.
Within hours, I had sophisticated programs up
and running. DirectRT’s ability to record very
accurate response times from a Windows
environment is a very nice asset, and its ability to
record voice activated reaction times and actually
record and save the responses is wonderful. Also, the
support offered by Empirisoft was extremely timely and
helpful. I highly recommend DirectRT to anyone who
needs to design a reaction time task. I have found
this software to be easy to use, efficient, and
accurate.
Michael Suvak
The National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
I began to feel at ease with
MediaLab after
having spent just 30 minutes fooling around with it. The user interface is,
oxymoronically, simultaneously intuitive and complex. That is,
MediaLab is intuitive enough
to be employed almost immediately, even by users with little or no knowledge of computer
programming (unlike competing programs like *****); however, MediaLab also offers more
than enough user options to allow the development of very complex multimedia experiments.
I particularly like MediaLab's data output
features: MediaLab provides researchers with Microsoft Excel, SPSS Syntax, and SPSS data
files. This feature is an excellent time-saver and makes the transition from data
collection to data analysis a breeze.
Patrick Vargas
University of Illinois, UC
When I first saw what
MediaLab could do, I
was afraid that it would take an advanced degree in computer science to operate. Much to
my surprise, the program is highly intuitive, requiring only a general understanding of
Windows to learn. MediaLab offers researchers the ability to
easily and quickly design multimedia experiments that would take far longer (and a far
more in-depth understanding of computer programming) to create in any other way. It also
makes data entry a snap, as the data files are automatically created as an Excel or SPSS
file.
George Bizer
Eastern Illinois
University
Essentially, MediaLab is a powerful tool for
research. The flexibility and diversity in the types of stimuli that can be presented and
the types of response options make it an excellent program for many different types of
psychological research. The variety of data output formats ensures that the data will be
easily available, regardless of which format you prefer. This also saves a lot of time and
resources that could be spent on data entry. This program is essential for psychological
research labs.
Kristen N. Moreno
Northwestern University
As researchers begin to appreciate the
benefits of computer-based data collection, they are often faced with the tough decisions
about how to go about getting software to match their needs. Writing one's own software
programs is time consuming and often results in a less than optimal solution. 'Canned'
computer programs exist but these often lack the flexibility needed for creative research
designs. MediaLab offers an ideal solution. Straightforward and easy to follow
instructions for basic experiments yet allowing the flexibility to integrate other
software routines and more complex stimulus presentation and data collection should it be
necessary or desirable. The program fits the needs of researchers because
MediaLab was
developed in collaboration with a wide range of active researchers.
Curtis Haugtvedt
Ohio State University
MediaLab holds the potential to reshape the way social
psychologists conduct research. With MediaLab, it is possible to present
participants with involving manipulations including graphical arrays, Power Point shows,
and even video clips. All of these can be seamlessly integrated into a single
experiment. No doubt, the quality of the data is improved because participants are
more engaged in the experimental procedures. MediaLab is great for researchers, too.
Not only is it easy to create experiments, but it’s simple to run participants and
integrate the data as well. In fact, because MediaLab automatically records the data
on a spreadsheet, it’s possible to run 200 participants during the day and analyze
the data that night. Also, because the entire administration is computerized,
it’s possible for interested researchers to conduct replications of your work using
your exact experimental procedures. You can post your experiments on the web or
e-mail them to interested researchers. Simply put, MediaLab allows the researcher to
obtain better data with less time and effort. It’s the next wave in
psychological research.
S.
Christian Wheeler
Stanford University
I find the software (both
MediaLab and DirectRT) to
be extremely user friendly. The software has been instrumental in
reducing the amount of time required to program complex
experiments. Customer support is exceptional. Blair is strongly
committed to producing a quality product that is both user friendly
and readily meets the experimental needs of his clients.
Ana
Franco-Watkins
University of Maryland
I have found DirectRT to be a very useful
tool for conducting experiments requiring the accurate assessment of
response times. It is incredibly easy and intuitive to program, and it
has been flexible enough to handle most of the experimental designs I've
dreamed up. Moreover, the program's developer provides excellent product
support.
Antonio Luis Freitas
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Simply put, MediaLab makes experimental design easy. A researcher can
design experiments with minimal computer experience and no programming
knowledge. The program is extremely flexible as it is, and it is
constantly growing and developing to add new features. Regardless of the
type of stimulus materials, dependent measures, or experimental designs
I've used, MediaLab has been up to the task. DirectRT, the reaction time
tag-a-long program it also quite easy to use. The programming is very
intuitive. Now that I've used it for a few studies, I can usually design
something like a sequential priming measure or lexical decision task in
under an hour. One of the greatest "features" is the support. Whenever
I've had any problems, Blair has been quick to offer suggestions or to
fix any problems. He also willingly takes (and solicits) suggestions for
future improvements in the program, allowing the program to grow with
the needs of those who use it. All-in-all, I've had nothing but good
experiences with the program. I would strongly recommend this program to
anyone doing experimental or questionnaire research in the social
sciences.
Ken Demaree
Ohio State University
Overall, I have been quite impressed with MediaLab. I have only had
experience with one other software package for conducting experiments
(xxxxxxxxx) and I have to say that
MediaLab is a much more sophisticated software package and extremely
user friendly.
Celeste Alvaro
Simon Fraser University
I have been able to quickly and easily create a wide variety of
priming procedures including IAT and Fazio evaluative priming procedure.
My collaborators and I have run about 20
experiments using this paradigm and have
obtained not only reliable patterns of moderation, but also
substantial correlations (r = .5 range) between evaluative
priming procedures and conscious attitude
measures and motivation measures. This speaks
well of the interface with DirectX in measuring precise presentation
and response times. I think that if you
are looking to dabble in priming methods, or if you have
more complicated measures in mind, this is a great program, low
investment in time, high return.
Jamie Barden
Ohio State University
I think MediaLab is an excellent program
for conducting in-person interviews, which is
what I do most often. Our lab has successfully conducted over 100
interviews with older adults (60 or more years old) and even those with
no experience with computers at all were able
to understand the process, enter their answers to a questionnaire of
over 200 items and were still cheerful at the end. Creating
questionnaires is not difficult, and the program enters and saves the
data; no more data entry! And cuts way down on
missing data, the bane of survey methodologists everywhere. And the
purchase process couldn't be easier; download
and go! No waiting for CDs to come in the mail. Best of all, however, is
customer support. No automated response
system H***. Empirisoft answers even the
dumbest questions (like mine) with patience,
kindness and humor. They have created
additions for special needs, been helpful to my students as well as
myself, and are an all around stand-up
company. I couldn't be happier with MediaLab,
and expect to use it for many years to come.
Aurora Sherman
Brandeis University
MediaLab is the easiest program I have
used for questionnaire-based experiments. The
experiment editor interface is very intuitive, so it takes very little
time for even a beginner to get an experiment up and running. Also,
there is less room for user error than in an
more complicated interface. MediaLab is also very flexible, even for a
beginner. I am often able to select a pre-programmed option that in
other programs would require custom programming. Related to this, the
data is produced in a format that can
immediately be imported and analyzed in SPSS, unlike some other
programs. Again, this saves time and reduces
the possibility of errors. Finally, the tech support is simply
unparalleled. I generally receive helpful responses to my questions
within a few hours. In sum, I would recommend MediaLab to anyone doing
questionnaire-based experiments!
Amara Brook
University of Michigan
DirectRT is truly an outstanding response
time program! It is extremely user friendly, allowing people with
little-to-no computer programming knowledge to quickly and easily design
their own response time experiments. Other key advantages of the program
include permitting multi-level randomization of stimuli, allowing for
the presentation of high-end graphics, and writing data on to files that
can be easily read by Excel or SPSS. Perhaps most important, the
program is very sensitive in its recording of response times,
maximizing response time accuracy. For anyone interested in conducting
response time experiments, this is the program to use!
Christine Page
Skidmore College
MediaLab and DirectRT are programs that
clearly have been designed by a psychologist for psychologists to use.
Compared to other similar software I
have used, the programs meet all of my needs, from the way trials and
questionnaires can be randomized to the type of stimuli that can be
presented and the varieties of responses that can be collected. The many
facets of the program have on occasion even prompted me to come up with
study ideas I might not have otherwise. Also,
the customer support that Empirisoft offers is
unparalleled. They have
without exception responded to my queries promptly and patiently, and do
an excellent job of troubleshooting from afar. Furthermore, when
DirectRT once did not meet the needs of a
study I was designing in terms of the type of responses it would accept,
he was able to rewrite the program for me very
quickly so that it would. Getting custom-made software was definitely a
new experience for me.
Abigail Marsh
Harvard University
I found both programs to be very user
friendly and easy to learn. The instruction manuals for both programs
were very well written and easy to follow. The examples were helpful to
see what the end result would look like, as well as to use for
practice in learning the programs. To be honest, I was a little
worried when my supervisor asked me to learn the programs, as I did not
really have a lot of programming experience. Once I started reading the
manuals and trying things out for myself, my
worries subsided. And when I needed help with something that I could not
figure out myself, Blair Jarvis himself was very helpful. He was very
patient with me an explained things very clearly and was able to help
me solve any problems, just from my descriptions of what was not
working. These were usually little things I had forgotten to do, and so
a little reminder was sometimes all that was needed. As well, the fact
that the input files are created in Excel was helpful, since I am
familiar with that program. This also made making changes to the
experiment easy. Many of the subjects
commented on the fact that the experiment looked nice, since were able
to create instruction screens using PowerPoint (which allowed us to
incorporate all of the capabilities of PowerPoint as well). Finally, the
data merging capability of the programs is
wonderful, as it saves a lot of time for the experimenter. In summary, I
would definitely recommend the programs to others and feel that they
make programming experiments an easy and fun experience (even for those
of us who have not done any programming previously).
Shilaja Sundaramoorthy
University of Toronto
I purchased MediaLab and DirectRT after
receiving positive recommendations from a
number of colleagues. When I started using the software I was surprised
by the short amount of time required to feel comfortable with the
interface. Since then, my lab has used
MediaLab and DirectRT for many different types of studies, and we
continue to be impressed by its ease, scope, and flexibility. In
addition, my students particularly like the way data are saved - they
find that it really simplifies the move from data
collection to analysis. Finally, the support (if needed) is
superb. When I did have a query about the program,
Empirisoft was very quick to respond with the necessary
information.
Geoff Haddock
Cardiff University, United Kingdom
Overall, I think DirectRT is a fantastic
product. The software is easy to use, versatile, and the customer
support is outstanding. The program itself offers ample help with
examples, sample programs, and text, so there are various methods to
solve problems. When I do e-mail customer
service, I typically get a response within 24
hours. Empirisoft customer service helped
me design solutions to my particular needs and
they were incredibly helpful. In the past, I
used a different experiment-building program.
It was slow, difficult to navigate, couldn't organize files well, and
was simply limited in the amount of information that could be included
(text, video, images, sound, animation, etc.) The customer service for
the other program was polite, but seemed like
it was limited by the many constraints of the software.
With DirectRT, I was able to run twice as many
studies in half the time. The programming was easy to learn, and
it was possible to incorporate all kinds of
media. The program allowed me to organize hundreds of files with ease.
The cost of the program was very reasonable. I highly recommend this
software!
Mary Alt
University of Arizona
With MediaLab/DirectRT, a truly
straightforward device which does not require elaborated technical
knowledge finally has become available for
researchers. With this truly user friendly program endless opportunities
for psychological research are being provided.
MediaLab/DirectRT offers a variety of different options making more
extensive research and the handling of complex issues possible. With its
highly flexible character this program certainly has contributed to
facilitating lab research. The positive effect MediaLab/DirectRT
also has on the participants and especially the excellent and immediate
support offered by the programmer, further contribute to this remarkable
flexibility. In addition, MediaLab/DirectRT not only eliminated the
extensive waste of paper as well as of other resources, but even more
importantly, its automatic storage of data in
the appropriate formats like SPSS or Excel enables the attainment of
better data while simultaneously saving a lot of time and effort. This
program is definitely more than a device; MediaLab/DirectRT marks
the beginning of a new era in computerized research…
Markus Denzler
International University Bremen
DirectRT has the potential to simplify
the life of any experimenter. As a researcher with no experience in
computer programming, but with some complicated experimental
requirements, DirectRT has been an invaluable tool for me. It
offers great flexibility and precise control, via an intuitive
Windows-based interface. Various types of experiments, from ratings of
pictorial stimuli to response times of verbal stimuli, can easily be
conducted either independently or
simultaneously. Learning to use DirectRT is
simple and quick. I had programmed my first experiment within 2 or 3
hours of installing the software on my lab computers. The instruction
manual is comprehensive, including several easy-to-grasp tutorials, and
the experiments can actually be programmed in the familiar Microsoft
Excel environment. Technical support from the
folks at Empirisoft is speedy, excellent, and personalized--when I
encountered a problem I didn't know how to
solve, they worked with me to create a solution. And finally, the data
are saved in a well-organized manner that facilitates immediate
analysis. I do not hesitate to recommend DirectRT to experimenters at
all levels of experience.
Zachary Estes
University of Georgia
I am a clinical psychology Ph.D. student,
but my interests often require methodology outside of my area of
expertise. For my dissertation study, I wanted
to create a new Implicit Assumption Task (IAT), but I was daunted by the
required programming that I had seen in other
software packages. I downloaded a trial version of DirectRT and was
amazed at how quickly I was able to get an experiment up and running.
DirectRT decreased the amount of time it took to set up my
dissertation study substantially, and has provided reliable and
accurate data recording throughout my data collection. Any time that I
encountered difficulties, they were quickly addressed by
Empirisoft (actually, it's more accurate to
say immediately, given the fast support
turnaround). I would recommend DirectRT to anyone in cognitive/social
psychology, but would even more strongly
recommend it to those in other areas who have avoided data collection
methods that require precision and accurate timing.
Bryan Cochran
University of Washington
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