multiplayer-test-experiments

Standalone, faithful replication builds of published reference-game studies, built on jspsych-multiplayer plugins. Ported out of that repo's examples/ (which is meant for lightweight teaching demos, not study artifacts) so these can live, version, and be piloted independently.

Files

• reference-game-hawkins.html — replicates Hawkins, Frank & Goodman (2020), Cognitive Science 44, e12845. Sequential condition: single target per trial, one click. Currently the paid-pilot build: 3 blocks × 12 tangrams = 36 trials, with Prolific exits, dropout handling and data saving. Runs on the local adapter or as a JATOS group study.
• hawkins.js — the Hawkins build's session logic (schedule, idle detection, exit routing, DataPipe and JATOS saving), kept out of the page so tests/ can load it.
• scripts/vendor.mjs — fills the gitignored vendor/ with every script the Hawkins page loads, at pinned versions. scripts/make-jzip.mjs packages the page as a JATOS study archive.
• reference-game-cwg.html — replicates Clark & Wilkes-Gibbs (1986), Cognition 22:1–39. Full-board condition: all 12 tangrams as an ordered target, 6 trials.
• tangrams.js — shared canonical 12-tangram stimulus set and deterministic trial schedule builders (sequentialSchedule, fullBoardSchedule), seeded from the session id so each dyad gets its own order while both partners agree on it.
• assets/tangrams/ — the 12 tangram PNGs, the exact set from hawkrobe/tangrams (Hawkins, Frank & Goodman 2020), themselves reproduced from Clark & Wilkes-Gibbs (1986).

	reference-game-hawkins.html	reference-game-cwg.html
Replicates	Hawkins, Frank & Goodman (2020)	Clark & Wilkes-Gibbs (1986)
Condition	Sequential — single target, one click	Full-board — all 12 tangrams as an ordered target
Schedule	6 blocks × 12 = 72 trials (paid pilot: 3 blocks, 36 trials)	6 trials, fresh full-board order each
Fidelity note	Near-exact, including Exp. 2's matcher-click gate (require_message_before_response: true)	Text chat substitutes for the original spoken dialogue — the one deliberate deviation, noted in-file

Both fix director/matcher for the whole game, reveal the target to the director only, and use unrestricted two-way chat — faithful to both papers and load-bearing for the reference-shortening effect both measure. Both were verified parameter-by-parameter against the papers and the original hawkrobe/tangrams experiment code, and play-tested two-tab at full schedule length.

round_timeout is not from either paper. Both builds set one (60s Hawkins, 180s C&WG) purely so a disconnected or absent partner cannot hang the trial forever — neither original was timed. Rounds it ends are logged as a timeout (multiplayer_outcome: "timeout" in the Hawkins build, ended_by: "timeout" in C&WG) with a null assignment, so they're easy to exclude.

Current pilot direction

The proposed first paid Prolific run is now a shortened Hawkins-style multiplayer pilot, built from the Hawkins fidelity work in PR #19 (hawkins-cued-fidelity) rather than from the older prototype file in the C&WG infrastructure stack. The working design is 3 blocks x 12 tangrams = 36 rounds. That is an intentional adaptation: the main goal of the first paid run is to prove the multiplayer pipeline, including pairing, data saving, terminal routes, and participant handling. The reference-shortening replication is still a scientific target, but the shortened pilot should not be described as a full six-block Hawkins replication.

The C&WG paid-run stack remains valuable source material for infrastructure: centralized run configuration, Prolific identifiers, DataPipe egress, no-match routing, dropout handling, and tests should be ported to Hawkins rather than treating C&WG as the first launch target.

Running it

Hawkins (reference-game-hawkins.html)

1. npm run vendor, with a jspsych-multiplayer checkout at ../jspsych-multiplayer (or pass its path: node scripts/vendor.mjs <path>). This builds the multiplayer bundles at the commit pinned in scripts/vendor.mjs and downloads the pinned jsPsych preview build and plugins into vendor/.
2. Serve the repo over http (e.g. npx http-server .) and open the page. It adds ?mp_session=… to the URL.
3. Open that full URL in exactly one other tab. The two tabs pair, and roles are drawn at random.

npm test runs the tests. As a JATOS group study: npm run jzip, then import the .jzip with JATOS's Import Study. The batch's Max active members must be 2; JATOS then pairs arrivals from a single study link and the adapter seals each pair.

C&WG (reference-game-cwg.html)

Still on the older multiplayer API and npm package pins, and not runnable until it is ported the way the Hawkins build was.

Running it as a paid study

Not yet. READINESS.md is the full audit, written before jspsych-multiplayer gained session IDs, group formation and rejoin detection, so parts of it are out of date. The Hawkins build now has: pairing from one JATOS study link, per-dyad trial orders from the session's shared randomness, dropout and idle detection with paid exits, reload detection, Prolific IDs and completion routing, and saving to JATOS and/or DataPipe. Still open: completion codes and the DataPipe ID are unset in CONFIG, the build has not been run on a real JATOS server, and the multiplayer packages are unreleased (the build pins a jspsych-multiplayer commit and a jsPsych preview build).