PEBL Launcher

PEBL (Psychology Experiment Building Language) represents a programming language designed to help specialists create psychology and neuroscience experiments by editing plain text documents. Based on Simple DirectMedia Library (libSDL), it's available for Mac OS X and Linux, besides Windows. Since it's cross-platform, it means that compiled projects can be run on any of these three operating systems.

Using this language, it's possible to present stimuli using not only text but also images, audio and video. It accepts responses via mouse and keyboard activity and other devices. Many networking and communication protocols are supported.

There's an installer and portable edition of the application's launcher available for download. When first firing up the PEBL launcher, it's possible to protect the tool by entering and confirming a password, in order to restrict the access of other PC users. However, you can also proceed without access protection.

Figuring out how the application works might be tricky without proper documentation. Luckily, user manuals and tutorials can be consulted. Test files have the .pbl format, which can only be launched using this tool.

The PEBL launcher has a built-in file navigator to help you locate and open .pbl files. You can combine data, view debug or error details, create a custom launcher, translate tests, collect demographics, and switch to fullscreen mode. An experiment chain can be easily put together by combining multiple tests (.pbl files).

When it comes to the programming language, PEBL has an intuitive syntax, similar to C. It contains a library of over 125 functions, many of which focus on creating and presenting stimuli and collecting responses. The language is case sensitive. Complex objects such as lists, audio files, fonts and colors are self-managed by the tool automatically (object subsystems).

The PEBL launcher worked smoothly on the latest Windows version in our evaluation. It had minimal impact on system resources usage and rendered tests swiftly.

All aspects considered, PEBL is an intuitive programming language for users interested in putting together psychology and neuroscience experiments and tests. It has complete user documentation.