Online experiments are growing in popularity, and the increasing sophistication of Web technology has made it possible to run complex behavioral experiments online using only a Web browser. Unlike ...with offline laboratory experiments, however, few tools exist to aid in the development of browser-based experiments. This makes the process of creating an experiment slow and challenging, particularly for researchers who lack a Web development background. This article introduces jsPsych, a JavaScript library for the development of Web-based experiments. jsPsych formalizes a way of describing experiments that is much simpler than writing the entire experiment from scratch. jsPsych then executes these descriptions automatically, handling the flow from one task to another. The jsPsych library is open-source and designed to be expanded by the research community. The project is available online at
www.jspsych.org
.
Summary
To date, there is no consensus about the definition and diagnostic grading of bruxism. A written consensus discussion was held among an international group of bruxism experts as to formulate ...a definition of bruxism and to suggest a grading system for its operationalisation. The expert group defined bruxism as a repetitive jaw‐muscle activity characterised by clenching or grinding of the teeth and/or by bracing or thrusting of the mandible. Bruxism has two distinct circadian manifestations: it can occur during sleep (indicated as sleep bruxism) or during wakefulness (indicated as awake bruxism). For the operationalisation of this definition, the expert group proposes a diagnostic grading system of ‘possible’, ‘probable’ and ‘definite’ sleep or awake bruxism. The proposed definition and grading system are suggested for clinical and research purposes in all relevant dental and medical domains.
Summary
In 2013, consensus was obtained on a definition of bruxism as repetitive masticatory muscle activity characterised by clenching or grinding of the teeth and/or by bracing or thrusting of the ...mandible and specified as either sleep bruxism or awake bruxism. In addition, a grading system was proposed to determine the likelihood that a certain assessment of bruxism actually yields a valid outcome. This study discusses the need for an updated consensus and has the following aims: (i) to further clarify the 2013 definition and to develop separate definitions for sleep and awake bruxism; (ii) to determine whether bruxism is a disorder rather than a behaviour that can be a risk factor for certain clinical conditions; (iii) to re‐examine the 2013 grading system; and (iv) to develop a research agenda. It was concluded that: (i) sleep and awake bruxism are masticatory muscle activities that occur during sleep (characterised as rhythmic or non‐rhythmic) and wakefulness (characterised by repetitive or sustained tooth contact and/or by bracing or thrusting of the mandible), respectively; (ii) in otherwise healthy individuals, bruxism should not be considered as a disorder, but rather as a behaviour that can be a risk (and/or protective) factor for certain clinical consequences; (iii) both non‐instrumental approaches (notably self‐report) and instrumental approaches (notably electromyography) can be employed to assess bruxism; and (iv) standard cut‐off points for establishing the presence or absence of bruxism should not be used in otherwise healthy individuals; rather, bruxism‐related masticatory muscle activities should be assessed in the behaviour's continuum.
Summary
There is a need to expand the current temporomandibular disorders' (TMDs) classification to include less common but clinically important disorders. The immediate aim was to develop a ...consensus‐based classification system and associated diagnostic criteria that have clinical and research utility for less common TMDs. The long‐term aim was to establish a foundation, vis‐à‐vis this classification system, that will stimulate data collection, validity testing and further criteria refinement. A working group members of the International RDC/TMD Consortium Network of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR), members of the Orofacial Pain Special Interest Group (SIG) of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), and members from other professional societies reviewed disorders for inclusion based on clinical significance, the availability of plausible diagnostic criteria and the ability to operationalise and study the criteria. The disorders were derived from the literature when possible and based on expert opinion as necessary. The expanded TMDs taxonomy was presented for feedback at international meetings. Of 56 disorders considered, 37 were included in the expanded taxonomy and were placed into the following four categories: temporomandibular joint disorders, masticatory muscle disorders, headache disorders and disorders affecting associated structures. Those excluded were extremely uncommon, lacking operationalised diagnostic criteria, not clearly related to TMDs, or not sufficiently distinct from disorders already included within the taxonomy. The expanded TMDs taxonomy offers an integrated approach to clinical diagnosis and provides a framework for further research to operationalise and test the proposed taxonomy and diagnostic criteria.
DataPipe
(
https://pipe.jspsych.org
)
is a tool that allows researchers to save data from a behavioral experiment directly to the Open Science Framework. Researchers can configure data storage ...options for an experiment on the DataPipe website and then use the DataPipe API to send data to the Open Science Framework from any Internet-connected experiment. DataPipe is free to use and open-source. This paper describes the design of DataPipe and how it can help researchers adopt the practice of born-open data collection.
Testing that an experiment works as intended is critical for identifying design problems and catching technical errors that could invalidate the results. Testing is also time-consuming because of the ...need to manually run the experiment. This makes testing the experiment costly for researchers, and therefore testing is less comprehensive than in other kinds of software development where tools to automate and speed up the testing process are widely used. In this paper, we describe an approach that substantially reduces the time required to test behavioral experiments: automated simulation of participant behavior. We describe how software that is used to build experiments can use information contained in the experiment's code to automatically generate plausible participant behavior. We demonstrate this through an implementation using jsPsych. We then describe four potential scenarios where automated simulation of participant behavior can improve the way researchers build experiments. Each scenario includes a demo and accompanying code. The full set of examples can be found at
https://jspsych.github.io/simulation-examples/
.
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