import simulation as sim
director = sim.Director()
builder = sim.ConcreteBuilder()
director.builder = builder
director.build_default_simulation()
esm_sim = builder.simulation
x, m, u, b, r, c = esm_sim.simulate()esm_sim.simulate() returns:
x: x-ticks array, m: memory accessibility array, u: urge (motivation) array, b: beeps array, r: responses array, and c: context array
the length of the arrays are equal
The parameters of the simulation can be customized by calling the setter methods of the builder. for example:
builder.set_days(100)
builder.set_random_beep(False)print(esm_sim.get_attrib_value_list())Output (values below correspond to the default builder):
[('_b', 0), ('_beep_power', 1), ('_beeps_a_day', 5), ('_context_aware_beep', True), ('_context_aware_threshold', 0.5), ('_context_change_steps', 2), ('_context_estimator_function', None), ('_context_reference', array([], dtype=float64)), ('_days', 25), ('_hours_in_day', 12), ('_max_c', 0.7), ('_min_c', 0.33), ('_override_inter_notification_steps', -1), ('_predefined_context_info', []), ('_predefined_times', []), ('_r', 0.2), ('_random_beep', False), ('_rate', -0.8), ('_salience_decay', 0.01), ('_salience_growth_ratio', 0.0015), ('_total_beeps', -1), ('_urge_decay', 0.005), ('_urge_max', 1), ('_use_prefedined_times_to_beep', True), ('decide', <bound method Simulation.decide of <simulation.Simulation object at 0x011D6BC8>>), ('est_context', <bound method Simulation.est_context of <simulation.Simulation object at 0x011D6BC8>>), ('exp_function', <bound method Simulation.exp_function of <simulation.Simulation object at 0x011D6BC8>>), ('get_attrib_value_list', <bound method Simulation.get_attrib_value_list of <simulation.Simulation object at 0x011D6BC8>>), ('is_in_fogg_signal_segment', <bound method Simulation.is_in_fogg_signal_segment of <simulation.Simulation object at 0x011D6BC8>>), ('linear_function', <bound method Simulation.linear_function of <simulation.Simulation object at 0x011D6BC8>>), ('random_with_change', <bound method Simulation.random_with_change of <simulation.Simulation object at 0x011D6BC8>>), ('send_beep', <bound method Simulation.send_beep of <simulation.Simulation object at 0x011D6BC8>>), ('simulate', <bound method Simulation.simulate of <simulation.Simulation object at 0x011D6BC8>>)]
import utils
fig, plt = utils.plot_sim(x, m, u, b, r, c)
plt.show()An example output plot of the simulaiton in web env:
| Parameter | Type | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| days | (int; optional) | the experiment period as the number of days | 25 |
| hours_in_day | (int; optional) | the total hours in a day that a beeps are allowed | 12 |
| beeps_a_day | (int; optional) | the (maximum) number of allowed beeps per day | 5 |
| context_change_steps | (int; optional) | the number of time steps the context remains unchanged. applies only when lenght of predefined_context_info is 0 or context_estimator_function is None | 2 |
| beep_power | (float; optional) | the maximum memory accessibility when a beep is received in percentage | 1 |
| urge_max | (float; optional) | the maximum possible motivation in percentage | 1 |
| r | (float; optional) | slope of the urge/motivation regeneration function | 0.2 |
| b | (float; optional) | intercept of the urge/motivation regeneration function | 0 |
| rate | (float; optional) | decay rate of the exponential function of memory accessibility | -0.8 |
| salience_decay | (float; optional) | the amount the beep_power drops each time a beep is received | 0.01 |
| urge_decay | (float; optional) | the amount the urge_max drops (increases) each time a beep is received at an inopportune (opportune) moment | 0.005 |
| randm_beep | (bool; optional) | to send beeps randomly or not. applies only when context_aware_beep is False | False |
| min_c | (float; optional) | minimum probability of responding to beep given context. applies only when lenght of predefined_context_info is 0 or context_estimator_function is None | 0.33 |
| context_aware_beep | (bool; optional) | to send beeps according to the context or not | True |
| predefined_times | (list; optional) | list of predefined beep times | [] |
| max_c | (float; optional) | maximum probability of responding to beep given context. applies only when lenght of predefined_context_info is 0 or context_estimator_function is None. | 0.7 |
| salience_growth_ratio | (float; optional) | the factor of salience_decay. used to regenerate salience over time | 0.0015 |
| predefined_context_info | (list; optional) | probability of responding to a beep given context at predefined times. must be mappable to predefined_times | [] |
| context_estimator_function | (Any; optional) | typically a trained ML model to estimate the probability of responding to a beep give a context | None |
| context_reference | (np.array; optional) | list of predefined context information. must be mappable to predefined_times. must be an acceptable input to context_estimator_function | np.array([]) |
| context_aware_threshold | (float; optional) | the minimum acceptable probability of response based on a given context in order to send a beep | 0.5 |
| use_prefedined_times_to_beep | (bool; optional) | when True predefined_times is used | True |
| override_inter_notification_steps | (int; optional) | when set to greater than -1 it will override the calculated inter notification time based on the experiment protocol | -1 |
| total_beeps | (int; optional) | when set to greater than -1 and when predefined_times exists it will determine the inter notification time so the total_beeps is achieved during the experiment period | -1 |
- Alireza Khanshan, Pieter Van Gorp, and Panos Markopoulos. 2023. Simulating Participant Behavior in Experience Sampling Method Research. In Extended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 250, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1145/3544549.3585586