Alternatives to Open Sesame Experiment Platform: Overcoming Limitations

The current era of digital cognitive and behavioral research demands versatile, efficient, and reliable tools for running experiments. The Open Sesame Experiment platform has been a popular choice. However, many researchers are finding its limitations increasingly troublesome, especially in the context of remote studies.

Current Limitations of Open Sesame Experiment Platform

While Open Sesame offers an array of features suitable for designing cognitive tasks, there are some persistent issues that can obstruct efficient execution of online experiments and psychological research. Let's outline a few:

Limited support for running online experiments and remote studies.
Difficulty integrating with other software or platforms such as jspsych.
Lack of active community or real-time support.

List of Alternatives

Fortunately, there are reliable alternatives available for researchers looking to overcome these limitations. Here's a few:

Cognition: This online platform offers a comprehensive environment to design, build and host cognitive tasks. It allows seamless integration with jspsych and supports data export to any preferred statistical tool.
Experiment Factory: This Python package offers pre-loaded experiments and easy customization. However, it is less user-friendly as compared to Cognition in terms of experiment hosting and conducting remote studies.

How to Migrate

Migrating from Open Sesame to other platforms like Cognition is not as complex as one might think. If you've made sure to document and structure the cognitive experiments appropriately in Open Sesame, replication in the new platform would be quite straightforward. It basically involves three steps:

Create a new experiment in your chosen alternative platform.
Import the structure and parameters of the cognitive task from the Open Sesame experiment.
Adapt the task based on the features and syntax of the new platform – this might include minor changes in the task design or data collection methods.

Migrating Cost

The cost of migrating largely depends on the platform you’re migrating to. For instance, Cognition provides a free package with basic functionalities suitable for small scale studies. However, for larger scale research or more advanced features, there's a small subscription fee.

Regardless, the benefits of better performance, support for online experiments and seamless integration with software like jspsych can significantly outweigh the prices.

Take the Leap

Ultimately, in an ever-evolving digital world, sometimes a platform change is necessary for the growth and success of your research. And with the right approach, the migration process can be quite smooth.

Now it's your turn to take the leap. Explore Cognition and see how it can revolutionize your cognitive experiment design and execution.