Overview

Project Planets is a sophisticated JavaScript-based web application designed for conducting research on decision-making, risk assessment, and learning patterns. It presents an interactive space-themed environment where participants engage with different planets to earn rewards while managing the risk of pirate attacks.

Built using the jsPsych framework and deployed with Docker, the application provides a fully configurable platform for psychological research with detailed data collection capabilities. The experiment guides participants through multiple phases with varying reward-punishment contingencies, systematically revealing how people adapt their behavior based on experience.

Challenge

Developing this behavioral experiment platform required solving complex technical challenges:

• Creating an engaging interactive environment while maintaining scientific control and experimental rigor
• Implementing precise timing mechanisms for stimulus presentation and response measurement
• Designing a probabilistic reward system with carefully calibrated parameters
• Developing custom plugins extending jsPsych for specialized experimental requirements
• Ensuring consistent cross-browser and cross-device behavior
• Creating a flexible architecture allowing researchers to modify parameters without coding knowledge

Approach

My solution combined software engineering best practices with deep understanding of behavioral research requirements:

• Built a modular architecture using JavaScript and jsPsych as the foundation
• Developed custom jsPsych plugins for specialized functionality, including:
  • Planet response plugins handling interactive game mechanics and data collection
  • Inference check plugins for measuring participants' understanding of relationships between stimuli
  • Custom triangle slider for innovative ternary choice data collection
• Implemented comprehensive deployment system with:
  • Cloud-provider flexibility with easy installation
  • Secure SSL/TLS encryption for participant data
  • Integrated storage through JATOS research platform
• Created thorough documentation for both researchers and developers
• Designed flexible configuration system allowing parameter modification without code changes

Demo

The Project Planets experiment follows a structured flow designed to measure how people learn from experience and adjust their behavior:

Experiment Flow

1. Phase 1: Participants interact with planets to earn rewards, learning the baseline reward probabilities for each planet
2. Assessment: Participants complete valence and inference checks to measure their current understanding
3. Phase 2: Ships are introduced that can attack and reduce points, creating a risk-reward tradeoff
4. Assessment: Further valence and inference checks to measure updated understanding
5. Phase 3: Participants are explicitly told the contingencies between planets and ships
6. Final Phase: Behavior is measured to see how explicit knowledge affects decision-making

Outcomes

Technical Achievements

• Successfully deployed as a scalable application usable by researchers worldwide
• Created reusable components adopted across multiple psychological research projects
• Developed comprehensive documentation enabling non-technical researchers to modify experiment parameters
• Built concurrent experiment capabilities with parameter variation
• Implemented secure data collection meeting strict research ethics requirements

Research Impact

Project Planets has enabled researchers to systematically investigate:

• How experience shapes risk perception and decision-making patterns
• Relationships between explicit knowledge and behavioral adaptation
• Individual differences in learning patterns and risk tolerance
• Effects of varying reward schedules on participant behavior

The platform has contributed to published research in cognitive psychology and has been cited in studies examining probabilistic learning and decision-making under uncertainty.

Skills Demonstrated

• Advanced JavaScript development
• Custom plugin development for jsPsych
• Research-focused web application development
• UI/UX design for psychological experiments
• Data collection and management systems
• Technical documentation for diverse audiences
• Interdisciplinary collaboration with research scientists