Hey all,

Apologies as this is likely obvious (I am new at Python), but I was wondering if there was a way to create a timer for the ultimatum game, for both decisions and offers (i.e. at those pages). The research protocol requires a minute delay after each is sent to the other person (or 1min before they can send their offer/decision), and ideally we do not want participants to explicitly know of the delay. If anyone can also provide me an ELI5 (Explain like I'm 5) of how to do it just so I can better learn, I would also appreciate it.

pd

The easiest way would we to include an intermittent page (which looks just like the decision page) with timeout_seconds = 60. If you do not include a next button on that page, then participants cannot advance by themselves but will only advance once the timeout has been reached. You could then hide the yellow oTree timer via CSS (see https://otree.readthedocs.io/en/latest/timeouts.html#hiding-the-timer).

I am not sure, however, that this is a useful design choice. With such a long delay and no visual feedback, participants may start wondering whether their browser or the server has become unresponsive or the internet connection has been dropped.

Currently, we've used a manual (i.e. confed on one side) to act as a delay for our protocol with the explanation of "shitty internet/computers" for our participants, which seems to work. We also have them complete a paper questionnaire too during that delay to slightly assist with mitigating boredom (to what actual extent, who knows). However, we are planning to move on to a dyadic design, which means we can't manipulate that delay manually.

I like the idea of the intermittent page but wouldn't the page repeat? I think that would especially make it seem like their offer didn't go through. So maybe instead having a (invisible) timer on the waiting pages after sending the offer would be better as they would be expecting to wait anyways? 

pdrisls