PsyToolkit

PsyToolkit is a software package for running psychological experiments, and it is best classified as behavior experiment software. It was developed by Dr Gijsbert Stoet as a software project at Washington University in St. Louis in 2005. Currently, the software is being developed at the University of Glasgow. The software has been presented several times at the annual meeting of the Society for Computers in Psychology.

Features
PsyToolkit was designed to offer an easy to use scripting language for creating experiments and provide an extensive library of resources and documentation. It runs on the Linux operating system and it has no graphical user interface, although a demonstration mode for Java exists. The software is compatible with Cedrus and IOLab systems keyboards. Unique to the software is that the scripting language is translated into (editable) C code, which then in turn is compiled into an executable using the Gnu C compiler. Apart from creating experiments, it also has a computer based questionnaire presenter (called PsyQuest) using the GTK+ toolkit.

Since version 1.4.0, experiments can be compiled into Java code which runs on all platforms (but which has limitations in terms of timing and functionality).

The software is released with various examples of popular paradigms in experimental psychology, including inhibition of return, task switching, attentional blink, spatial compatibility, multiple object tracking, and visual search.