Empirica: a virtual lab for high-throughput macro-level experiments
Abstract Virtual labs allow researchers to design high-throughput and macro-level experiments that are not feasible in traditional in-person physical lab settings. Despite the increasing popularity of online research, researchers still face many technical and logistical barriers when de...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Springer US
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/132105 |
| _version_ | 1826197491678183424 |
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| author | Almaatouq, Abdullah Becker, Joshua Houghton, James P Paton, Nicolas Watts, Duncan J Whiting, Mark E |
| author2 | Sloan School of Management |
| author_facet | Sloan School of Management Almaatouq, Abdullah Becker, Joshua Houghton, James P Paton, Nicolas Watts, Duncan J Whiting, Mark E |
| author_sort | Almaatouq, Abdullah |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Abstract
Virtual labs allow researchers to design high-throughput and macro-level experiments that are not feasible in traditional in-person physical lab settings. Despite the increasing popularity of online research, researchers still face many technical and logistical barriers when designing and deploying virtual lab experiments. While several platforms exist to facilitate the development of virtual lab experiments, they typically present researchers with a stark trade-off between usability and functionality. We introduce Empirica: a modular virtual lab that offers a solution to the usability–functionality trade-off by employing a “flexible defaults” design strategy. This strategy enables us to maintain complete “build anything” flexibility while offering a development platform that is accessible to novice programmers. Empirica’s architecture is designed to allow for parameterizable experimental designs, reusable protocols, and rapid development. These features will increase the accessibility of virtual lab experiments, remove barriers to innovation in experiment design, and enable rapid progress in the understanding of human behavior. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:48:31Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/132105 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:48:31Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Springer US |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1321052023-02-24T15:36:57Z Empirica: a virtual lab for high-throughput macro-level experiments Almaatouq, Abdullah Becker, Joshua Houghton, James P Paton, Nicolas Watts, Duncan J Whiting, Mark E Sloan School of Management MIT Connection Science (Research institute) Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Computational Science and Engineering Abstract Virtual labs allow researchers to design high-throughput and macro-level experiments that are not feasible in traditional in-person physical lab settings. Despite the increasing popularity of online research, researchers still face many technical and logistical barriers when designing and deploying virtual lab experiments. While several platforms exist to facilitate the development of virtual lab experiments, they typically present researchers with a stark trade-off between usability and functionality. We introduce Empirica: a modular virtual lab that offers a solution to the usability–functionality trade-off by employing a “flexible defaults” design strategy. This strategy enables us to maintain complete “build anything” flexibility while offering a development platform that is accessible to novice programmers. Empirica’s architecture is designed to allow for parameterizable experimental designs, reusable protocols, and rapid development. These features will increase the accessibility of virtual lab experiments, remove barriers to innovation in experiment design, and enable rapid progress in the understanding of human behavior. 2021-09-20T17:41:59Z 2021-09-20T17:41:59Z 2021-03-29 2021-04-04T04:06:14Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/132105 PUBLISHER_CC en https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-020-01535-9 Creative Commons Attribution https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The Author(s) application/pdf Springer US Springer US |
| spellingShingle | Almaatouq, Abdullah Becker, Joshua Houghton, James P Paton, Nicolas Watts, Duncan J Whiting, Mark E Empirica: a virtual lab for high-throughput macro-level experiments |
| title | Empirica: a virtual lab for high-throughput macro-level experiments |
| title_full | Empirica: a virtual lab for high-throughput macro-level experiments |
| title_fullStr | Empirica: a virtual lab for high-throughput macro-level experiments |
| title_full_unstemmed | Empirica: a virtual lab for high-throughput macro-level experiments |
| title_short | Empirica: a virtual lab for high-throughput macro-level experiments |
| title_sort | empirica a virtual lab for high throughput macro level experiments |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/132105 |
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