E-Prime (software)

E-Prime is an software applications suite for conducting psychological and neuroscientifical experiments, developed by Psychology Software Tools (PST) and first released in 1996. It offers control over almost every aspect of paradigm creation, and is temporally accurate to within a few milliseconds, a crucial aspect of control for many research needs. One of the benefits to E-Prime is its user base of over 10,000. As such, PST is able to direct the development of its product based on the feedback of a large group of users.

The E-Prime Application Suite
The E-Prime suite of applications gives the user control over every aspect inherent to data collection in a research study. The core system includes: E-Studio, E-Basic, E-Run, E-Merge, E-DataAid, and E-Recovery.

E-Studio
E-Studio is program used for paradigm creation. Here users will define the temporal layout of their study, as well as define all parameters they want included within each subject's dataset.

E-Basic
For those users who require more advanced capabilities than be obtained through the E-Studio graphical interface, the E-Basic programming language - nearly identical to Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications - is available. Using this language, users can implement highly complex paradigms and record measurements from virtually any aspect of the program.

E-Run
This program is installed on the testing computer (the computer with which the subject will interact) and actually compiles and runs the paradigm created earlier.

E-Merge
From the PST website: This application allows you to quickly and easily combine your single session data files into multi-session data files. E-Merge also keeps a history on each data file. This is particularly useful in order to determine which files have been merged along with the date and location of each data file.

E-DataAid
When a subject completes an experiment, E-Prime saves the data from that experiment in a specialized file. Using E-DataAid, users can view the data that was saved from the experimental run, and, if they want, send the data to other applications. E-DataAid also gives you the ability to calculate basic statistical information such as the mean accuracy, etc... through the analyze feature (Menu-->Tools-->Analyze). It's amazing how few people use the wonderful filtering features of this program to clean up their data.

E-Recovery
Sometimes users abort a session in the middle of a trial, or possibly a computer glitch might cause the experiment to be interrupted. In such a situation, users can use this program to recover some of the information that was gathered already.

User Experience
E-Prime is widely regarded as the de facto standard for behavioral experiment generation. According to the Psychology Software Tools, Inc. web site, E-Prime has a user base well over 10,000. This makes it easy for users to share experiments, tips, and ideas via a variety of message boards dedicated to the software (see external links).