E-DATAAID: Spreadsheet [22788]

The spreadsheet is the main view in the E-DataAid application, and appears in the center of the application display. The spreadsheet displays the data included within the currently opened file in a grid format similar to Excel. The columns in the spreadsheet represent the experiment variables, and the rows represent the lowest log level in the experiment (e.g., trials). When E-DataAid is first opened, the spreadsheet remains gray until a file is opened, at which time the data within the opened file is displayed in the grid format.
 

Organization
By default, the spreadsheet displays the ExperimentName, Subject, and Session variables in the first three columns in the grid. The remaining variables are organized alphabetically within hierarchical levels (e.g., Session, Block, Trial, etc.). The spreadsheet may be reorganized by moving, hiding, or unhiding columns. To retain the new organization of the spreadsheet the next time the file is opened, save the file before closing. Otherwise, the default order of the spreadsheet will be restored the next time the file is opened. If a variable exists at more than one level (e.g., block and trial levels), each level will be placed in a separate column, and the column header will display the variable’s name followed by its level number or name in brackets (i.e., whether the level appears as a number or a name is determined by how the application options are set).
 

Each instance of the lowest level of data is displayed in its own row (i.e., if the trial level is the lowest level, each row would represent a trial). To maintain the consecutive nature of the data, the application does not allow the movement of rows, but rows may be hidden or displayed by using filters.
 

Editing Cells
A cell’s value may be edited by typing directly in a particular cell. If a cell cannot be edited, it will appear in gray, and the cursor cannot be placed in the cell. The image below illustrates that the cells in the Trial attribute (created by the E-Prime system), may not be edited.
 

Any cell in a column displaying level numbers for any level below the session level will be read-only (e.g., Block, Trial, etc.). Because of the hierarchical nature of experiment data, the application does not allow editing of these numbers. Any cell in a column on which an Administrator places a security restriction will also be read-only.

Cell Inheritance

If a cell contains italicized text, the application’s inheritance option is on, and the value contained within that cell has been inherited from another cell. When the inheritance option is on, any multi- level variable cell that has missing data will inherit its data value from the cell in the same row for that variable’s next highest level. For example, if a variable occurs at two levels (e.g., Color occurs at both the Block and Trial levels), the spreadsheet will have two columns for that variable (e.g., Color[Block]and Color[Trial]). When inheritance is on, any cells containing missing values in the lower level for the variable (e.g., Trial) will inherit the value from the next higher level (e.g., Block). Inherited values are displayed in italics.
 

 
When inheritance is off, the cells would contain NULL. The inheritance option may be toggled on or off using the Options command in the View menu.
 

 
Data Missing From Cells
Within E-DataAid, any cell containing missing data is displayed as NULL. When exporting data, the Export dialog includes a Missing Data field to allow changing the way missing data is represented, depending on the constraints of the statistical package being used. The options within the Export dialog allow the user to export cells containing missing data as blank cells, cells containing “No Data”, “Null”, an asterisk (*), a period (.), or a user-entered value.

 
Navigation to Cells
To navigate to a particular cell in the spreadsheet, use the arrow keys. To place the cursor in a cell, either click inside the cell using the mouse, or navigate to the cell with the arrow keys and press the F2 key.

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