Timeout

A timeout can be set to limit the time the subject has for giving the answers for a test item. Without a timeout the subject can have as much time as he needs to decide the answers. With a timeout, the test goes to the next item when the time ends.

In addition a timeout warning can be set to alert the subject that the time is about to end: the warning indicator changes from green to yellow.

When a timeout occurs and the subject hasn't signalled that he is 'done', the indicator changes to red for a second and then goes to the next item. The results will show that a timeout occured for this item for this subject.

The timeout can be used with both free and fixed sequences. The behaviour of time limits differ slightly in fixes and free sequences, see notes.

Setting timeouts

By default the timeout time limit and timeout warning are not used (the timeout times are zero). The timeouts are enabled by setting the itemTimeout and itemWarningTimeout parameters in the test config file. Here is an example:

   # item timeout in seconds
   itemTimeout=10.0
   # warning time before timeout
   itemWarningTimeout=4.0

In this example the subject has 10 seconds to give answers for this item. When 4 seconds are left (6 seconds after the start of giving answers), the indicator changes from green to yellow to show that time is about to end. The itemWarningTimeout parameter may be left out (equivalent to setting it to zero) and then the indicator goes directly from green to red when time ends.

Notes

Some notes about using timeouts:

With a fixed sequence the time starts when the whole fixed sequence has been played to the subject and answering is enabled.
With a free sequence the time starts when the item starts. The time limit should be long enough that the subject has enough time to compare samples and switching between them multiple times. The time limit includes the time used to play samples and giving the answers.

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Last modified: Thu Apr 16 10:40:56 EET DST 1998