Movie Watching Task

Field	Value
Name	Movie Watching Task
Version	v1.1.0
URL / Repository	https://github.com/TaskBeacon/T000007-movie
Short Description	Passive movie-viewing EEG task with centered movie stimulus
Created By	Zhipeng Cao (zhipeng30@foxmail.com)
Date Updated	2026-02-17
PsyFlow Version	0.1.9
PsychoPy Version	2025.1.1
Modality	Behavior/EEG
Language	Chinese
Voice Name	zh-CN-YunyangNeural

1. Task Overview

This task presents a movie stimulus while participants watch passively. No trial response is required during movie playback.

2. Task Flow

Block-Level Flow

• Initialize runtime, triggers, and movie stimulus resources.
• Present instructions and execute configured movie trials/blocks.
• Save outputs and close PsychoPy runtime cleanly.

Trial-Level Flow

• pre_movie_fixation: pre-playback fixation.
• movie_lead_in: short lead-in stage before playback.
• movie_playback: movie presentation window (passive viewing).

Controller Logic

• Built-in sequential condition generation (BlockUnit.generate_conditions(order="sequential")).
• One condition (movie) with no trial-level branching.
• Trigger emission anchored to experiment/block boundaries and movie onset/offset.

Runtime Modes

• Human (default): python main.py
• QA: python main.py qa --config config/config_qa.yaml
• Scripted sim: python main.py sim --config config/config_scripted_sim.yaml
• Sampler sim: python main.py sim --config config/config_sampler_sim.yaml

3. Configuration Summary

• config/config.yaml: base human run profile
• config/config_qa.yaml: QA/dev profile
• config/config_scripted_sim.yaml: scripted simulation profile
• config/config_sampler_sim.yaml: sampler simulation profile

a. Subject Info

• Subject form fields: subject_id, subname, age, gender.
• Subject mapping labels are defined in subinfo_mapping.

b. Window Settings

• Fullscreen display at 1920x1080, deg units, black background.
• Monitor metadata: width 60 cm, viewing distance 72 cm.

c. Stimuli

• fixation: centered +.
• movie: assets/demo_movie.mp4 (replace with licensed media for production).
• instruction_text and good_bye: config-defined localized text boxes.

d. Timing

• timing.pre_movie_fixation_duration
• timing.movie_lead_in_duration
• timing.movie_duration

Assets and Copyright Workaround

The original copyrighted movie clip is not included in this repository. A demo movie file is included for QA/sim and pipeline validation.

See assets/README.md for:

• demo file policy
• how to replace with licensed movie media
• expected filename/path constraints

Outputs

• Human: outputs/human/
• QA: outputs/qa/
• Scripted sim: outputs/sim/
• Sampler sim: outputs/sim_sampler/

Task Notes

• Trigger config uses structured schema: triggers.map/driver/policy/timing.
• Trial responder context is wired in src/run_trial.py via set_trial_context(...).
• Task-specific sampler is in responders/task_sampler.py.

Runtime Context Phases

Phase Label	Meaning
pre_movie_fixation	pre movie fixation stage in src/run_trial.py responder context.
movie_lead_in	movie lead in stage in src/run_trial.py responder context.
movie_playback	movie playback stage in src/run_trial.py responder context.

4. Methods (for academic publication)

Participants passively view movie stimuli while event timing and trigger emissions are controlled for reproducible acquisition. Each trial includes fixation, lead-in, and playback stages without behavioral response requirements. The task is suitable for naturalistic viewing paradigms where synchronized presentation logs are required for downstream analysis.