# VPT Difference of Means

library(splithalfr)

This vignette describes a scoring method similar to Mogg and Bradley (1999); difference of mean reaction times (RTs) between conditions with probe-at-test and probe-at-control, for correct responses, after removing RTs below 200 ms and above 520 ms, on Visual Probe Task data.

# Dataset

Load the included VPT dataset and inspect its documentation.

data("ds_vpt", package = "splithalfr")
?ds_vpt

## Relevant variables

The columns used in this example are:

• UserID, which identifies participants
• block_type, in order to select assessment blocks only
• patt, in order to compare trials in which the probe is at the test or at the control stimulus
• response, in order to select correct responses only
• rt, in order to drop RTs outside of the range [200, 520] and calculate means per level of patt

## Preprocessing

Only select trials from assessment blocks

ds_vpt <- subset(ds_vpt, block_type == "assess")

# Scoring the VPT

Writing a scoring method for the splithalfr requires implementing two functions; a sets function that describes which sets of data should be split into halves and a score function that calculates a score.

## Defining the sets function

The sets function receives data from a single participant and returns a list of datasets for each condition. In this case, we will generate two data frames: one with data from trials with probe-at-test (patt == “yes”) and one with data from trials with probe-at-control (patt == “no”).

vpt_fn_sets <- function (ds) {
return (list(
# Probe-at-test
patt_yes = subset(ds, patt == "yes"),
# Probe-at-control
patt_no  = subset(ds, patt == "no")
))
}

## Defining the score function

The score function receives these two data frames from a single participant and for each:

1. selects only correct responses
2. drops responses with RTs outside of the range [200, 520]
3. calculates the mean RT of remaining responses

Finally, it returns the difference between the two mean RTs.

vpt_fn_score <- function (sets) {
rt_yes <- subset(sets$patt_yes, response == 1)$rt
rt_yes <- rt_yes[rt_yes >= 200 & rt_yes <= 520]
rt_no <- subset(sets$patt_no, response == 1)$rt
rt_no <- rt_no[rt_no >= 200 & rt_no <= 520]
return (mean(rt_no) - mean(rt_yes))
}

## Calculating a score without the splithalfr

By combining the sets and score functions, a score for a single participant can be calculated. For instance, the score of UserID 1 can be calculated via the statement below.

vpt_fn_score(vpt_fn_sets(subset(ds_vpt, UserID == 1)))

## Calculating scores with the splithalfr

To calculate scores for each participant, call sh_apply with four arguments:

1. the dataset
2. the column that identifies participants in the dataset
3. the sets function
4. the score function

The sh_apply function will return a data frame with one row per participant, and two columns: one that identifies participants (“UserID” in this example) and a column “score”, that contains the output of the score function.

vpt_scores <- sh_apply(ds_vpt, "UserID", vpt_fn_sets, vpt_fn_score)

## Checking scores

It is recommended to check your scoring method by calculating the score of a representative participant via a different approach. For splithalfr tests, the author has done so via Excel. Note that in the example dataset, some participants (such as UserID 28) did not have any correct responses in the patt == yes condition with RTs within the range [200, 520]. For these participants, a score could not be calculated.

# Estimating split-half reliability

## Generating split scores

To calculate split-half scores for each participant, call sh_apply with an additional split_count argument, which specifies how many splits should be calculated. For each participant and split, the splithalfr will randomly divide the dataset of each element of sets into two halves that differ at most by one in size. When called with a split_count argument that is higher than zero, sh_apply returns a data frame with the following columns:

• UserID, which identifies participants
• split, which counts splits
• score_1, and score_2, which are the scores calculated for each of the split datasets

Since for some participants a score could not be calculated, the split scores are missing for these participants as well.

vpt_splits <- sh_apply(ds_vpt, "UserID", vpt_fn_sets, vpt_fn_score, 1000)

## Estimating reliability averaged over splits

Next, the output of sh_apply can be analyzed in order to estimate reliability. By default, functions are provided that automatically calculate mean Spearman-Brown (mean_sb_by_split) and Flanagan-Rulon (mean_fr_by_split) coefficients. If any missing values were encountered in the data provided to these functions, they give a warning, and then pairwise remove the missing data before calculating reliability.

# Spearman-Brown
mean_sb_by_split(vpt_splits)