Repeating trials in MatLab

Question

i'm am very new to Matlab but really want improve. For my experiment i want to show a picture which the participant response yes/no to, using two different keys (f&g) and then the next picture is presented and it repeats so onward.

Presenting the picture, using the keys works for far, but i can't get it to repeat the trial. Thus my question is how can i get the program to repeat/loop my trial? Is there something wrong in my code so far or is there additional coding i should use?

this is my code so far

function try1_6()

cleanupObj= onCleanup(@() myCleanupFxn);

% PRETEST
% Initialize screen with black background
winID = Screen('openWindow',0, [0 0 0]);

%Parameter
backcol=255;
textcol=0;

% Load image file(s)
structimages= [];
TheImagesdir = dir('theImagesdir/*.jpg');
for i=1: length(TheImagesdir);
    TheImages  = imread(['theImagesdir/' TheImagesdir(i).name], 'JPEG');

    % Get width and height
    imageX = size(TheImages,2);
    imageY = size(TheImages,1);

    % Convert to texture
    myTexture = Screen('MakeTexture', winID, TheImages);

    % Set destination rectangle
    destRect = [50  100  50+imageX  100+imageY];

    %save to structure
    structimages(end+1).filename=TheImagesdir(i).name;
    structimages(end).destRect= destRect;
    structimages(end).texture= myTexture;
end

%Make triallist
numberOfItems= [5]; %list of all possible items
Nrepeats=4;
Response=0;
TrialList=HH_mkTrialList({numberOfItems Response},Nrepeats); 


%PRESENTATION

for trialnum=1:size(TrialList,1)
    nitems = TrialList(trialnum,1);

    Screen('FillRect', winID,backcol); % makes the screen blank

    %displays text
    DrawFormattedText(winID,'dkjfghaslkdfglksdjgfh','center','center',textcol);
    Screen('Flip', winID)
    HH_waitForKeyPress({'space'}); % waits for spacebar to be pressed
    Screen('FillRect',winID,backcol);
    Screen('Flip',winID);
    WaitSecs(1);

    %display picture
    whichTheImages= randi(length(TheImagesdir)); % randomly selects image for directory
    Screen('FillRect',winID,backcol);
    Screen('DrawTexture', winID, myTexture, [], destRect);

    Screen('Flip', winID);
    HH_waitForKeyPress({'f','j'},5)

    if resp==-1
       break
    end 

    TrialList(trialnum,4)= response; %records response

end

end

function myCleanupFxn()
    Screen('CloseAll')
end

Answer 1

There are a number of problems with you code that you need to address. First of all, TrialList is used before it is declared/initialized. The Make triallist block of code seems out of place in the body of the for loop, and should probably be placed before you loop TrialList.

Your second problem is the inner for loop that loads images. Right now, it loads every image found in the directory, on every trial! There is no reason for you to be doing this, and you should be placing this for loop outside the trial loop as well. Furthermore, your original code never worked as intended, because you never save the loaded texture anywhere; myTexture is overwritten by the last image in your folder and that's the only texture you're ever gonna get. So in addition to pre-loading the images before the loop, you need to save them in a data structure so that you can use them later in your trial loop. A simple struct will work nicely here:

structImages = [];
TheImagesdir = dir('theImagesdir/*.jpg');
for i = 1:length(TheImagesdir);
    TheImages  = imread(['theImagesdir/' TheImagesdir(i).name], 'JPEG');

    % Get width and height
    imageX = size(TheImages,2);
    imageY = size(TheImages,1);

    % Convert to texture
    myTexture = Screen('MakeTexture', winID, TheImages);

    % Set destination rectangle
    destRect = [50  100  50+imageX  100+imageY];

    %save to structure
    structImages(end+1).filename = TheImagesdir(i).name;
    structImages(end).destRect = destRect;
    structImages(end).texture = myTexture;
end

There are other inconsistencies in your code:

1. whichTheIamges is defined but not used
2. resp is used in the comparison if resp==-1 but is not defined
3. response is saved into TrialList before it is defined

Finally, the biggest problem is Screen('CloseAll', winID); is inside the trial loop, so you tear down your whole presentation platform after the first trial.

FYI, as noted in my comment wrapping your entire script in a try block is really poor practice. I suspect you do this because you want to be able to Ctrl+C mid-task, but there's a better way to do this. If you make your entire script a function then you can use the onCleanup method to execute code whenever your function exits (whether normally, by error, or by interruption). The method goes like this:

function myScript()
%//make your script a function. There is an additional advantages to doing this: 
%//function performance is better than script performance.

%//blah-blah-blah

%//setup the cleanup object before opening screen
cleanupObj = onCleanup(@() myCleanupFxn);

%//open the screen
winID = Screen('openWindow',0, [0 0 0]);

%//blah-blah-blah

end

function myCleanupFxn()
    %//local function, not visible outside of this file
    Screen('CloseAll');
end