Published April 22, 2026 | Version v1.3.0
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ds4psy: Data science for psychologists

Authors/Creators

Description

Data Science for Psychologists (ds4psy)

All datasets and functions required for the examples and exercises of the books Data Science for Psychologists and Introduction to Data Science (by Hansjoerg Neth, Konstanz University, 2026), freely available at https://hneth-ds4psy.share.connect.posit.cloud/ and https://hneth-i2ds.share.connect.posit.cloud/.

These books and corresponding courses introduce principles and methods of data science to students of psychology and other biological or social sciences. The R package ds4psy primarily provides datasets, but also functions for data generation and manipulation (e.g., of text and time data) and graphics that are used in the book and its exercises. All functions included in ds4psy are designed to be explicit and instructive, rather than efficient or elegant.

Overview

The books and courses Data Science for Psychologists include the following resources:

ds4psy 1.3.0

Release of ds4psy (1.3.0) on CRAN adds new data and updates links to online resources. [2026-04-22]

Changes since last release:

Major changes

  • Add new i2ds_survey data ($N=101$ participants, $119$ variables)

Minor changes

Details

  • Updated URLs (in description, citation, and README) to reflect change in book hosting service

The current development version of ds4psy is available at https://github.com/hneth/ds4psy/.

Versions of ds4psy published on on CRAN:

ds4psy 1.2.0

Release of ds4psy (1.2.0) on CRAN adds new data and fixes some bugs. [2025-11-05]

Changes since last release:

Major changes

  • Add new i2ds_survey data ($N=60$ participants, $116$ variables)

Minor changes

  • Fix bugs in i2ds_survey data:
    • Add variable names to art preference tasks
    • Reverse scale in ranking of food items (e.g., apple, ..., mud)
    • Add some session information (referrer, date, duration)

Details

  • Bug fix: replace size by linewidth arguments in ggplot2 functions

  • Improve documentation:

    • Enumerate and re-arrange variables in i2ds_survey data
    • Update online documentation

ds4psy 1.1.0

Release of ds4psy (1.1.0) on CRAN adds functionality, provides new data, and fixes some bugs. [2025-09-13]

Changes since last release:

Major changes

  • add i2ds_survey data (36 participants/rows, 112 variables)
  • add plot_circ_points() function

Minor changes

  • change gender in exp_num_dt into a binary variable (with values "female" vs. "not female")
  • add deg2rad() and rad2deg() conversion functions

Details

  • new logo

ds4psy 1.0.0

Release of ds4psy (1.0.0) on CRAN fixes some bugs, but mostly acknowledges the package's stable state. [2023-09-15]

Changes since last release:

Minor changes

  • bug fix: Update time zones

Details

  • update status badges
  • update URLs

ds4psy 0.9.0

Release of ds4psy (0.9.0) on CRAN adds functionality, implements minor changes, and fixes some bugs. [2022-10-20]

Changes since last release:

Major changes

  • add base2dec() and dec2base() functions for converting numerals into non-decimal notations, and back.
  • add chars_to_text() and text_to_chars() functions for converting character vectors into text, and back.

Minor changes

  • add rseed argument to map_text_regex() and plot_chars() for reproducible results.
  • add collapse_chars() as a wrapper around paste() with a collapse argument.
  • rearrange contents (by creating dedicated utility files).

Details

ds4psy 0.8.0

Release of ds4psy (0.8.0) on CRAN adds functionality, increases modularity, and fixes some bugs. [2022-04-08]

Changes since last release:

Major changes

  • add a invert_rules() function (for decoding encoded messages by inverting the rules used for encoding).
  • add a words_to_text() function as the inverse of text_to_words().
  • add a zodiac() function (with multiple outputs formats and options for redefining date boundaries).

Minor changes

  • add table9 as a variant of tidyr::table2 as a 3-dimensional array (xtabs).
  • improved capitalize() to also work for character vectors (i.e., setting the case of each element to upper- or lowercase).

Details

  • fix minor bugs.

ds4psy 0.7.0

Release of ds4psy (0.7.0) on CRAN adds functionality, increases modularity, and fixes a bug in text data. [2021-05-12]

Changes since last release:

Major changes

  • Breaking change: The function read_ascii() was split into 2\ parts (to enable independent access to their functionality):

    1. A new read_ascii() version reads text (from file or user input) into a character string;
    2. A new map_text_coord() function converts a text string into a table of individual characters (with x/y-coordinates).

  • Added plot_chars() for plotting characters of text and visualizing pattern matches (specified as regular expressions) by highlighting labels (color/angle) or background tiles (color). The function uses 2\ auxiliary functions:

    1. map_text_regex() adds pattern matching options (for colors and angles) to map_text_coord().
    2. plot_charmap() plots character maps as text and tile plots (with aesthetics for labels and tiles).

  • Added count_chars_words() for counting the frequency of both characters and words in text strings.

Minor changes

  • add plot_mar argument to theme_empty()
  • add functionality to plot_text() (but see plot_chars())
  • add utility functions for locating, identifying, and assigning vectors (of color/angle maps) to text strings matching a pattern
  • add text_to_chars() and related functions for converting character strings (e.g., text to characters, preserving spaces)
  • add utility functions for counting the frequency of characters and words in text strings
  • rename is_vector() to is_vect() as an is_vector() function is defined by the purrr package

Details

  • signal deprecation status in plot_text()
  • bug fix: remove marked UTF-8 strings from Trumpisms

The current development version of ds4psy is hosted at https://github.com/hneth/ds4psy/.

ds4psy 0.6.0

Release of ds4psy (0.6.0) on CRAN adds functionality, updates data, and reduces dependencies. [2021-04-08]

Changes since last release:

Major changes

  • add is_vector() to check for vectors (i.e., atomic vectors or lists)
  • add get_set() for motivating visualizations

Minor changes

  • update data in fame and Trumpisms

Details

  • remove import of cowplot by adding theme_empty()
  • reduce reliance on unikn by replacing some colors with corresponding HEX codes

ds4psy 0.5.0

Release of ds4psy (0.5.0) on CRAN adds and revises functionality, updates data, and fixes bugs. [2020-09-01]

Changes since last release:

Major changes

  • Additional functions for dates and times:

    • add diff_dates() to compute temporal differences between dates (in human time units of years, months, and days)
    • add diff_times() to compute temporal differences between times (in human time units of years, ..., and seconds)
    • add diff_tz() to compute time difference based on time zone differences
    • add days_in_month() to obtain number of days in months for given dates (accounting for leap years)

  • add is_equal() and num_equal() to check pairwise (near) equality of vectors

  • add theme_clean() as an alternative to theme_ds4psy()

Minor changes

  • rename is.wholenumber() to is_wholenumber()
  • revise arguments of sample_date() and sample_time() to align with sample()
  • revise theme_ds4psy() to provide control over colors of backgrounds, lines, and text elements
  • update fame data

Details

  • bug fix: num_as_char() now also works for negative numbers.
  • bug fix: Remove alternative solution in is_leap_year() (which yielded FALSE for NA inputs).
  • bug fix: Replace \u2212 (minus sign) by - (dash) in exp_num_dt$blood_type to prevent Note on "marked UTF-8 strings".

ds4psy 0.4.0

Release of ds4psy (0.4.0) on CRAN adds new functionality and fixes minor bugs. [2020-07-06]

Changes since last release:

Major changes

  • This version adds support for processing data with dates and times:

    • simple date and time functions now include options for returning dates or times, rather than strings.
    • add time zone support to various functions.
    • add datasets with date and time variables.

Minor changes

  • change_tz() and change_time() functions for changing the display of calendar times ("POSIXct") to local times ("POSIXlt") in different time zones tz, and vice versa (i.e., changing actual time, but preserving time display).
  • is_leap_year() function checks dates and times (or integers denoting years in 4-digit "%Y" format) for falling within a leap year.
  • data in dt_10 and exp_num_dt support exercises on dates and times.
  • cur_date() and cur_time() now print date/time (as string) or return a "Date"/"POSIXct" object.
  • what_date() and what_time() gain support for adding time zones tz (but no active conversion).
  • sample_time(): Switch default to sampling "POSIXct" objects (making "POSIXlt" optional) and allow specifying time zones tz.
  • All date and time functions based primarily on dates (cur_date(), what_date(), etc.) now use Sys.Date() (i.e., an object of class "Date") rather than Sys.time() (i.e., a "POSIXct" calendar time) as default.

Details

  • bug fix: Distinguish is.wholenumber() from is.integer()
  • bug fix: Use \u... rather than \U... in Umlaut definitions
  • bug fix: Remove non-ASCII characters from fruits and flowery

ds4psy 0.3.0

Release of ds4psy (0.3.0) on CRAN adds new functionality (e.g., support for processing text data, new datasets, and functions). [2020-06-15]

Changes since last release:

Major changes

  • add functions and datasets for string manipulation and text processing

Minor changes

  • add text_to_sentences() and text_to_words() functions for text processing
  • add count_words() (in analogy to count_chars()) function for text processing
  • add cclass (as a named character vector) for matching character classes in regular expressions
  • add metachar (as a character vector) for matching meta-characters in regular expressions
  • add Umlaut (as a named character vector) for showing and selecting German Umlaut characters
  • add datasets of countries, fruits, and flowery phrases (as character vectors)
  • add datasets of Bushisms and Trumpisms (as character vectors)
  • add sample_char() function

Details

  • add Travis integration to README.Rmd
  • rename count_char() to count_chars() (to use plural form)
  • rename sample_date() and sample_time() (to use singular form)
  • rename family of text functions to text objects and functions
  • rename family of random functions to sampling functions

ds4psy 0.2.1

Release of ds4psy (0.2.1) on CRAN is a maintenance release (to remove some dependencies, fix bugs on CRAN platforms, and add some datasets). [2020-05-06]

Changes since last release:

Major changes

  • remove dependencies on the here and tibble packages (and remove from declared Imports).

Minor changes

  • add 4 messy table versions of ficticious experiment data (used in Exercise 1 of Chapter 7: Tidying data Four messes and one tidy table) to the package: t_1--t_4.

Details

  • bug fix: Replace what_day with a simpler version that omits unit and as_integer arguments (to avoid WARN on CRAN for r-devel-linux-x86_64-debian-clang)
  • bug fix: Remove .data$... elements from aes() in ggplot calls
  • bug fix: Add utils::globalVariables(...) to avoid Warning NOTE "Undefined global functions or variables"
  • bug fix: Remove packages not used in this version (i.e., dplyr, and magrittr) from declared Imports

ds4psy 0.2.0

Release of ds4psy (0.2.0) on CRAN adds functionality and fixes some bugs. [2020-04-20]

Changes since last release:

Major changes

Changes involving new functionality include:

  • add random data generation functions (e.g., for coin() flips and dice() throws)
  • add is.wholenumber() to test for integer values (mentioned in R oddities)
  • add plot_text() plotting function
  • add read_ascii() and count_chars() functions for text processing
  • add caseflip() and capitalize() functions for text processing
  • add random date and time generation functions (e.g., for sample_date() and sample_time())
  • add simple date and time functions (e.g., cur_date(), cur_time(), for Chapter\ 10: Time data)
  • add what_ functions for simple date and time queries (for Chapter\ 10: Time data)

Minor changes

  • add data generation function make_grid() for an exercise on visual illusions (Exercise\ 6 of Chapter\ 2)
  • add fame dataset to illustrate working with dates (Exercise\ 3 of Chapter\ 10)
  • add utility functions num_as_char() and num_as_ordinal() (to be used in Chapter\ 11: Functions)

Details

  • add documentations of datasets (in data.R)
  • bug fix: Remove redundant code (from plot_fun.R)
  • bug fix: Remove packages not used in this version (i.e., readr, stringr, tidyr, and tidyverse) from declared Imports

ds4psy 0.1.0

Initial release of ds4psy (0.1.0) on CRAN. [2019-08-10]

The initial functionality is limited, as the package is designed to support the ds4psy book:

  • provide book code (from examples and exercises) as a package
  • provide all data sets currently used in the book (with documentation and references)
  • provide an initial color scheme and plotting theme
  • add plotting functions (e.g., of book graphics) for function exploration purposes

[File NEWS.md updated on 2026-04-22.]

Notes

If you use this software, please cite it as below.

Files

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Software: https://github.com/hneth/ds4psy/tree/v1.3.0 (URL)

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Repository URL
https://github.com/hneth/ds4psy