PsyBuilder: an open-source cross-platform graphical experiment builder for Psychtoolbox with built-in performance optimization

Central in an experimental psychologist’s toolkit is software for stimulus presentation and response collection. An ideal package should combine flexibility and power in the choice of stimuli and responses, precision in control and timing, and ease of use. Psychtoolbox has remained the most popular open-source package, but it suffers from two major long-standing limitations: being script-based only, Psychtoolbox is challenging to learn and time-consuming to program and debug; scripting can also lead to timing inaccuracies unwittingly. We dissolve these limitations by developing the first general-purpose graphical experiment builder for Psychtoolbox, called PsyBuilder, which allows users to graphically implement sophisticated experimental tasks through intuitive drag-and-drop without the need of coding and with built-in optimized timing precision. PsyBuilder is poised to facilitate wider adoption of Psychtoolbox in teaching and research in lieu of proprietary software, fueling the open science movement. Furthermore, its built-in performance optimization and drag-and-drop design can improve data-collection efficiency and accuracy to accelerate scientific progress.