cursor

Experiments

Controls the mouse cursor for one trial. The setting takes effect when the trial is shown. Use it to hide the cursor (e.g. precise timing/gaze tasks) or switch to a crosshair/pointer.

Syntax

Put a single keyword in the cell: hide, hideStart, crosshair, or pointer. Only the values listed under Options do anything. If several words are in the cell, only the last one is used.

Options

Value	Effect
empty cell	No cursor options for the trial; cursor unchanged
hide	Cursor hidden for the whole trial
hideStart	Cursor hidden at trial start, restored on the first pointer move that happens at least 50 ms after start
crosshair	Crosshair cursor for the whole page
pointer	Pointer (hand) cursor for the whole page
file	Reserved, does nothing
any other keyword (none, wait, default…)	Ignored
a dotted filename, e.g. arrow.cur	Broken: breaks the experiment while it loads

Defaults & missing values

• If the column is absent or the cell is left empty, the cursor stays the browser default.
• The cursor is reset at the end of the trial, but only when the trial proceeds directly to the next one, i.e. no feedback screen and no open response window. With hideStart, the cursor is restored on the first pointer move at least 50 ms after trial start, and in any case when the trial ends, even without any movement.

Works with

• Draggable stimuli: each draggable stimulus uses the raw keyword as its own cursor. pointer/crosshair work there; hide/hideStart are not valid cursors for the stimulus itself and are ignored by the browser.
• The cursor setting takes effect at the start of the trial, before the stimulus appears.
• A cursor cell on a form row does nothing.

Examples

type	stim1	stimFormat	cursor
test	apple	word	hide

Cursor invisible for the whole trial.

type	stim1	stimFormat	cursor
test	face1	.jpg	hideStart

Cursor hidden at stimulus onset; reappears once the participant moves the mouse (earliest 50 ms after trial start).

Tips & gotchas

• This is NOT a generic CSS cursor column: only hide, hideStart, crosshair, and pointer have any effect. To hide the cursor you must write hide, not none.
• If several words are present in the cell, the last one wins.

Caution

Custom cursor files are not supported: any value containing a dot (like arrow.cur) breaks the experiment while it loads.

Caution

The cursor is only reset when a trial proceeds directly to the next one. When a trial ends through a feedback screen or an open response window, a hide/crosshair/pointer cursor persists through the feedback screen and into subsequent trials until a later trial ends via the direct path, or, for hideStart, until the pointer moves.