Describes a question asked of each participant at stated points, whose
answers are saved but never enter the shared log: no agent sees a probe
or its answers afterwards, so asking it does not change the discussion.
Asked before and after an injection, the same question measures a
position on both sides of it; asked at "start" and "end", it gives
ratings before and after a session.
Arguments
- question
One non-empty string, the question.
- at
One point, or a list of points, at which to ask it:
fg_after_item(),fg_before_turn(),"start","before_closing", or"end"."end"comes after the closing line;"before_closing"comes before it.- label
Optional name for the probe in the records; by default
"probe_1","probe_2", ... in the order the probes are given.- participants
Optional character vector of participant ids to ask;
NULLasks every participant.- scale
Optional two whole numbers,
c(lo, hi)withlo < hi, the ends of the scale on which the question asks for a number.NULL, the default, records the answers as text only.
Details
Each participant answers with its persona, the standing rules, and the
discussion so far, as for a turn, and the probe as the closing
instruction, worded by the participant_probe_instruction template of
get_default_prompt_templates(). The answer is the reply's final answer,
without any reasoning. A reply that is empty or cut off is retried once
with a larger budget; one still empty is recorded as NA, with a
warning. The answers are returned in the probes component of the result,
with the raw reply beside each.
With scale = c(lo, hi), each answer is also read as a number, recorded
in the value column. The reading is strict. Markup ("4"), a
restatement of the scale ("1-7:", "on a scale of 1 to 7", "from 1
(strongly against) to 7 (strongly in favor)"), and a denominator equal to
hi ("5/7", "6 out of 7") are set aside, as are digits joined to letters
("P3", "V241", "2024s") and, on a scale whose ends lie between -999 and
999, numbers of four or more digits, such as years. What remains must be
one whole number from lo to hi. An answer with no number, with two
different numbers ("3 or 4"), with a fraction of a point ("4.5"), with a
number outside the scale ("-2"), or on another scale ("6/10" on a 1 to 7
scale) is not read, and neither are numbers written in words ("seven");
Arabic-Indic and Persian digits are read as digits. Nor is an answer that
negates, compares, or reports someone else's number, whose number need
not be the answer: one with "minus", "negative", "not", "never", "no",
"except", "at least", "at most", "more than", "less than", "fewer than",
"higher", "lower", "above", "below", "over", "under", or "between"
(outside the scale's own restatement and the description of its ends),
a number followed by "+" ("2+"), "others said", "they said", "everyone
said", "someone said", or "P3 said", or a fraction written as one
character, such as the half sign.
Such an answer is followed by one re-ask in the same private exchange,
worded by the participant_probe_reask template, asking for one number
from lo to hi alone. An empty reply to the re-ask is not retried, and
the earlier answer is kept. A value still unread is NA, and the
participants concerned are named in one warning for the probe at that
point. The column attempts counts the calls made for each answer, and
every call, the re-ask included, is in the result's calls.
Examples
fg_probe(paste("Where do you stand on extending library hours, from 1",
"(strongly against) to 7 (strongly in favor)?",
"Answer with the number first."),
at = list("start", fg_after_item(4), "end"), label = "position",
scale = c(1, 7))
#> <fg_probe> at start, fg_after_item(4), end, scale 1 to 7
#> Where do you stand on extending library hours, from 1 (strongly against) to 7 (strongly in favor)? Answer with the number first.