Development of a Free Psychological Testing Battery Platform

Institution: Michigan Technological University

Funders (561)

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Why This Project Is Important

Currently, psychological testing is dominated by expensive proprietary tests that have for the most part been developed using public research money. The licensing costs associated with testing makes access difficult or expensive in many contexts and prevents access to useful testing in many other contexts where funding is limited (schools, prisons, university research) or unavailable (underdeveloped and developing countries). Improving accessibility of high-quality psychological tests to these usage communities will have a substantial impact on the quality of both new research and current mental health care.

Project Description

The PEBL Test battery (http://pebl.sourceforge.net), whose testing and development is lead by Dr. Mueller in the Michigan Technological University Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences, has a mission to bring a high-quality and validated set of computerized psychological tests to clinicians and researchers around the world.

Its open source test battery currently consists of approximately 100 psychological tests, and has been used in over 100 published research papers, and is used by researchers and clinicians around the world. Funding this project will help to translate the current version to mobile computing platforms, as well as support the further development and norming of new psychological tests.

This project is intended to help support further development of the PEBL system, including:

Easy methods for translating tests to other languages
Improving PEBL infrastructure to enable better distributed data management and sharing
Development of a PEBL Experiment Generator tool
Collection of normative data sets to enable use in diagnostic contexts.
Development of additional training material and workshops to help new users.

Note: Password Information - The response system is not automated. I will get notified when a donation is made, and then I will send an email containing passcode and other information. I usually respond as soon as I see the notification email, although responses can at times be delayed I am not available. If you have not received a response within 48 hours, please contact shanem at mtu dot edu.

Meet the Researcher

Shane Mueller

Assoc. Professor in Applied Cognitive Science, Cognitive Modeling, and Human Factors at Michigan Technological University. Studies Memory, Decision making, and knowledge representation. Developer of PEBL, the Psychology Experiment Building Language. ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7418-4592

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Questions for the Researcher

Edward Manning July 7, 2014 - 3:21pm

I think this is very interesting and am happy to support it, but I do have a question. My understanding of current CPT codes is that computerized testing is an acceptable procedure for billing (96103, 96120) but that this billing is capped at 1 hour, unlike face-to-face testing by a Psychologist/Neuropsychologist and/or a Psychometrist under supervision. Have you taken this into consideration? Regards, Ed Manning

Shane Mueller (Researcher) July 7, 2014 - 4:27pm

Ed, Thank you for your support. I really don't know anything about medical billing procedures. Most PEBL users are using it in research contexts and so not paying per-use license fees is important. If you have ideas about what it would take to better support clinical testing, I'd be interested in listening and learning.

graham bean September 3, 2014 - 7:30am

Hello, I wonder if you can help. I made a donation but did not get a password. Would you tell me how I can get that password. Many thanks

Superior Ideas September 3, 2014 - 10:29am

Shane will be sending you a personal email with the password information soon. Please let us know if you have any other questions! Thank you very much for your donation!

Shane Mueller (Researcher) September 3, 2014 - 10:32am

Hi, The response system is not automated, so I get notified when a donation is made, and then send an email containing passcode and other information. You should have gotten this by now, but I'm replying here as an FYI for future donors. I usually respond as soon as I see the notification email, although responses can at times be delayed I am not available. If you have not received a response within 48 hours, please contact shanem at mtu dot edu.

Carlos Alberto November 7, 2014 - 7:09pm

Hello, my name is Carlos I am from Ecuador and I work as neuropsychologist. I am using the PEBL in my PhD Thesis and traslating some tests for using with children that speak in spanish, you can see one experiment in spanish using PEBL in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceW8Q4eEFLE&list=UUBagjxhvsXkSEB04ujHqyCQ And, I want to know if I could receive the password for using PEBL. Regards, Carlos

marie mooney March 7, 2015 - 11:01am

I've used the test battery for a course I taught and the students really enjoyed working with it. I would love to see improvements to the interface and a mobile version, so I'm happy to donate. Thank you for the wonderful resource!

reza bidhendi April 26, 2015 - 9:07am

I install the PEBL but I couldn't lunch the battery on my system. I was wondering what the problem is and how to solve it. Thank you very much for your brilliant work.

Shane Mueller (Researcher) April 27, 2015 - 4:48pm

Please email me at my university email or the pebl list with more details about what you did and what worked/didn't work, including what OS you are using. You should try stand-alone version to make sure it works.

Raimondo Bruno June 11, 2015 - 11:24pm

I'm using PEBL in my lab, the new updates are excellent - thank you. I'd like to donate; I tried to donate but the website refuses my credit card. My best guess as to why is that your forms assume that everybody in the world lives in a US state, so you are forced to select a US state when you enter your address. When that doesn't check against the card details, the transaction fails.

Superior Ideas June 12, 2015 - 9:02am

Thank you for your interest in the PEBL software. When making a donation, you actually don't have to select a state. You can always select N/A (first option). Superior Ideas accepts transactions from all around the world. Please let us know if you have any other questions! Thanks again for your interest.

Liz Temple August 7, 2015 - 1:23am

Hi, I want to run PEBL across 4-8 computers for my study - can the one password be used for all or will I need as many passwords as computers?

Shane Mueller (Researcher) August 25, 2015 - 5:27pm

The password just allows you to bypass the splash screen. Feel free to use it on as many computers as you want, to make running studies easier.

Yuri Rassovsky December 12, 2015 - 5:29am

Dear Shane, I've installed PEBL on OSX El Capitan but encountered a number of problems. 1. Opening the app did not create the exp directory. I've created a folder a folder pebl-exp.0.14 myself, which resolved this issue. 2. The GUIs are unreadable. Thanks Yuri

Shane Mueller (Researcher) December 13, 2015 - 12:29pm

Yuri, I've recently gotten reports of bugs like this when installing PEBL on el capitan. I need to recompile on OSX after updating various libraries for it to work--apple is traditionally pretty cavalier about breaking things in new versions. I hope to update/recompile over winter break, so stay tuned. Shane

Yuri Rassovsky December 15, 2015 - 4:01am

Thanks a lot. Yuri

Diana Pili December 15, 2015 - 4:09pm

Hi, I wanted to donate and be sent the password to use the test battery but when it comes to what comes immediately after the 'Submit payment' button my browser warns me the connection is not secure. Would it be possible to use a different method of payment, e.g. Paypal ? Thank you very much. Best. Diana

Superior Ideas December 15, 2015 - 4:40pm

Hi Diana! Thank you for your interest in the PEBL project on Superior Ideas. The only alternative method of payment would be to submit a check for the donation. Superior Ideas uses Touchnet as the primary credit card processing application. Credit card payments are processed in compliance with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). PCI DSS is a worldwide information security standard assembled by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council.

Diana Pili December 17, 2015 - 8:15am

Ok, I have donated now. Looking forward to receiving the password for PEBL. Thank you very much for sharing your hard work, I will spread the word.

Superior Ideas December 17, 2015 - 12:26pm

Thank you for the contribution! You will receive an email from the project creator with the password. Thanks again for your interest in this project, we hope you enjoy it!

Apoorva Safai December 18, 2015 - 10:32am

Hi, I am interested in donating to your project, and use your test battery for my research purpose. Before that I just wanted to know,will the results that I get in the test report be in terms of percentile score/t score/z score after being compared with some normative database ? Thanks!

Shane Mueller (Researcher) December 18, 2015 - 11:46am

There is no need to donate in order to use the tests, so you can evaluate output and reporting right now. We have some normative data from a handful of tests that is coming out in publication soon, but these are not yet linked to test reports, and it would depend on the test, and also the population you are interested in (these are typically western college students). I am also spearheading a multi-national normative study, so if you are interested in contributing to it, please let me know.

Shaunagh Hendry September 2, 2016 - 7:22am

Hi there, I made a donation a week or so ago and I'm just waiting for a password. Where/when would I be able to get one? Thank you for allowing access to the PEBL I plan on using it for my dissertation. Many thanks.

Shane Mueller (Researcher) September 2, 2016 - 8:49am

Shaunagh, Please check your inbox and maybe your spam--I believe I sent something a week ago and I have resent now. If I have incorrect contact information, contact me directly and I'll get you the information Shane Mueller

William Shepard September 28, 2016 - 2:49pm

Any normative data sets available for the Clock Test? I utilize it as a research measure as part of an adult ADHD assessment battery. I also have a (very small) data set from the Clock Test that I'd be willing to contribute, stratified by age, gender, race, education level, and eventual diagnosis post-assessment.

Shane Mueller (Researcher) September 28, 2016 - 3:14pm

William, I know of no norm on our clock test--although I do know of a couple of small-scale studies people have done that help establish validity. We are in the process of putting together an open data archive that will enable data contributions just like yours--this will probably be active by the end of the semester. If you'd like to contribute, having your data available (raw data files + accompanying data such as demographics) will help up understand the best ways to incorporate the normative information. If you'd like to contribute the data as a sample data set, please contact me at shanem at mtu.edu and we can discuss.

mohammad kheirkhah November 11, 2016 - 5:18pm

hi there, I want to translate the tasks in Persian but PEBL do not support Farsi. can you help me? thanks.

Shane Mueller (Researcher) November 12, 2016 - 8:00am

Hi, I think Persian/Farsi is right-to-left? If so, the current text layout engine we use doesn't support that, and the default font probably won't either. The font is not a big issue to change, but the RTL issue is. Sometimes if you give it the text backward line-by-line, the layout will be acceptable. However, users will typically just make a image screenshot of instructions and main text and replace any text layout within the script for anything moderately complicated. Contact me at shanem@mtu.edu if you have specific questions.

Marc Belles March 27, 2017 - 3:22am

Hi, I made a donation two weeks ago and I got no pasword so far. when would I be able to get it? thanks in advance

Shane Mueller (Researcher) April 5, 2017 - 10:05am

You should have now received the password via email. Thanks!

manochehr ghalkhani February 19, 2018 - 2:07am

Hello I installed PEBLE software on my computer, but none of the files and tests are loaded. Does the software work with Windows 8.1? Should I get a license to use the software?

Shane Mueller (Researcher) February 19, 2018 - 5:50pm

It should work on 8.1 no problem. There might be an issue with either (1) you may have tried to install from a user that does not have administrator access. If it went through the installer but then the menu option PEBL2 does not appear, this is probably the issue; (2) exactly how your user/documents directory is defined. It should work OK, except there might be some problems if you have a IT-managed computer or something where it maps Documents\ directory to a remote drive or something. If the pebl-exp.2.0 folder appears in Documents but is empty, you can try deleting it and running PEBL again which should recopy the tests over. If you can't get these to work, the main workaround is using the standalone version that will run off your desktop and does not require installation.

Natali Torres December 14, 2019 - 8:31am

Hi! We are intent to use PEBL in a research project at Brazil. For that we are working in the Portuguese translations for a subset of tests in PEBL. How can I contribute to PEBL Project by making our translations available? Thanks

Maya Alvarez August 19, 2022 - 3:35pm

How do I run the test on multiple computers? For instance, I need to send this program to my professor, but I am unsure how to do that... Help, please.

Emilija Bingelyte October 5, 2022 - 5:31am

Hi, is there a possibility to make PEBL test shorter in duration or the amount of tasks?

Jesús Mercado April 15, 2024 - 2:56pm

Hello, thank you for this excellent software. I would like to know if I can obtain a password?

Natasha Chopp April 15, 2024 - 4:14pm

Hello! Thank you for your interest in the software! You can obtain the password to the PEBL project by making a donation to this project. Within a couple of days after you make a donation the Project Creator, Shane Mueller, will email you the password and additional information. Thanks again!

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What Your Donation Can Help Us Do:

Support Michigan Tech students and staff to develop, test, document, and distribute the PEBL software.
Help build infrastructure to better allow members of the PEBL community to help improve PEBL via distributed norm collection, translations, and community outreach.