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This page contains a list of experimental software packages, including information about the interface, cost, distributor, support, and recommendations, arranged alphabetically, by package. The information on this list has been compiled from the comments of users and developers. I will continue to incorporate new information and opinions sent my way. Thank you. Faith Florer, flf@river.org
ActiveSTIM
Platform: Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP
Interface: ActiveX
Stimulus Presentation: Visual; bitmap files. Unlimited number of bitmap files can be organised into films or complex dynamically changing stimuli.Supports all graphic modes (resolution, refresh rate, color depth). In the 8-bit colour mode, dynamical change of colour palettes. Sends also TTL pulses for triggering other stimulation devices or recording of physiological responses. High accuracy of digital IO is achieved through low-cost National Instruments digital IO board. Can be controlled from all programming environments that support ActiveX (Matlab, Visual Basic, LabView, C++, Delphi, JavaScript, etc). All stimulus events are programmed in respect to the count of screen frames, assuring best possible accuracy of stimulation. A skipped screen frame is detected and reported. Supports stereoscopic googles. Receives digital IO. Time of input events (e.g., behavioral responses) measured with sub-millisecond accuracy.
Output: Digital TTL, ActiveX.
Cost: see <http://www.neurobehavioralsystems.com/software/presentation/>http://www.ActiveSTIM.com
Distributor: AlphaOmega, Inc.
Support: E-mail
Intended Users/Comments: Neuroscience, Psychology, Psychophysics
C++ Library for Psychophysics
Platform: IBM compatible PCs
Interface: Standard Windows or Unix. Needs OpenGL and GLUT installed, as well as a C++ compiler.
Stimulus Presentation: The library includes dots, circles, disks, noisy disks, DoGs, noisy DoGs, Gabors, rectangles, bars, lines, line loops and text functions. All these objects can be positioned with a subpixel resolution, moved with a given velocity in a given direction, and rendered in stereo with a given disparity by using either colored glasses, stereoglasses or two monitors.
Cost: Free
Distributor:
http://www.physiol.ox.ac.uk/~yp/psph.cpp
Support:
http://www.physiol.ox.ac.uk/~yp/psph.cpp
Intended Users/Comments: The library was originally created with a stereo experiment in mind, but it includes constant-motion envelope functions as well now. I am planning to write an html manual soon; for now a short info is attached at the beginning of the psph.cpp file. Also, although I didn't try the library in Windows, there should be no problem using it there.
Cogent
Platform: Windows
Interface: Matlab
Stimulus Presentation: Cogent 2000 provides utilities for the manipulation of graphics, sound, keyboard, mouse, joystick, serial port, parallel port, subject responses and physiological monitoring hardware, and a graphics library for high level graphics and animations.For fMRI, Cogent 2000 can be configured to receive synchronization pulses from a scanner allowing experimental timing to be tightly coupled with image acquisition.
Cost: Publicly and freely avaiable
Distributor:
http://www.vislab.ucl.ac.uk/Cogent
Support: Although people can email cogent2000@fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk for answera to questions and queries, there is no formal support.
Intended Users/Comments: Experimental scientists/psychophysicists.
CORTEX5
Platform: DOS (+ windows 95/98/2000 in 2 computer-mode).
Interface: Text-based menus, Graphical Eye-position window. 'C'-like programming (compiler included). Also has an interactive receptive-field mapping mode.
Stimulus Presentation: Anything that is supported by DirectX (AVI's MPegs Mov's, BMP, JPEG, etc) plus Cortex-format movies and bitmaps, in any temporal ans spatial order (multiple's are possible at the same time).
Output: Binary files (has a conversion to textfile utility), of user responses, spike-data, eye-position data and/or epp data (data acquisistion boards required for anything but user responses).
Cost: Free
Distributor: http://www.cortex.salk.edu/
Support: Distributor
Intended Users/Comments: Physiological and psychophysical experiments.
DIRECTOR
Platform: Macs.
Interface: High level programming language.
Stimulus Presentation: BMPs, GIFs, JPEGs, LRG, Photoshop 3, Macpaint, PNG, TIFF, PICT files; PRCS and Scrapbook; AIFF, SWA, and WAVE sounds; IMA and System 7 sounds; QuickTime; RTF text and ASCI; and, palettes.
Output: Under Construction
Cost: About $400
Distributor: Macromedia
Support: Distributor
Intended Users/Comments: The software is intended for Multimedia and Web Developers, and is easy to use for creating animations from line drawings or digitized images. It has limited flexibility and power.
DMaster
Platform: IBM compatible PCs
Interface: Standard Windows or DOS
Stimulus Presentation: The software was originally written in Macro assembly code for a PDP-11 running under RT-11, supporting four separate experimental testing stations and a number of editing stations running asynchronously. This work was done at Monash University in Australia, beginning in 1975. Subsequently the code was rewritten in C for a PC/XT and graphics and speech capabilities were added by Jonathan Forster at the University of Arizona. As of the summer of 1999, we have added the Windows 95/98 version, called DMDX. This has all the features of the DOS versions, plus some new ones. Contrary to popular belief, running under Windows does not necessarily compromise the accuracy of timing. DMDX makes use of DirectX (which comes as part of Windows 98, or as an add-on to early versions of Windows 95), which gives the programmer better control of the hardware.
Cost:
Distributor:
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~kforster/dmdx/dmdx.htm
Intended Users/Comments: DMASTR (DisplayMaster) is a suite of programs written for IBM compatible PCs by http://www.u.arizona.edu/~kforsterK.I.Forster and http://www.u.arizona.edu/~jforster/ J.C. Forster at the University of Arizona. The software is designed for the measurement and analysis of reaction times in language processing tasks, such as lexical decision, naming, picture naming, RSVP, masked priming, same-different matching, semantic categorization, self-paced reading, etc.
DMDX
Platform: Windows 98/2000/ME/XP
Interface: Text and dialog boxes.
Stimulus Presentation: DMDX is a Win32 program designed to precisely time the presentation of text, audio, graphical and streaming video material, and to enable the measurement of reaction times to these displays with millisecond accuracy. It is an extension of the DOS-based DMASTR suite, which in turn was based on software written for a PDP-11. DMDX supports a dual monitor display mode, in which the experimenter views a separate display from the subject . Single monitor mode is also supported. In addition, it is possible to track the course of an experiment from a remote location via the internet. Support is provided for recording responses via the keyboard, a parallel I/O interface, mouse, gamepad, or an integrated digital VOX for vocal responses. The keyboard mode allows for multiple responses, including typed responses, suitable for identification tasks, or ratings. The accuracy of timing has been extensively tested, and a summary of the results is reported in Forster and Forster (2003).
Output: Data are saved to text files. The parallel I/O interface permits 16-bit output to external devices such as fMRI scanners, EEG, etc.
Cost: free.
Distributor:
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~kforster/dmdx/dmdx.htm
Support: On-line Help files, plus tutorials, and a User listserv (links provided on the DMDX homepage).
Intended Users/Comments: Psycholinguists, cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, experimental psychologists.
Reference: Forster, K. I., & Forster, J. C. (2003). DMDX: A Windows display program with millisecond accuracy. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers, 35, 116-124.
E-PRIME
Platform: Windows
Interface: High level programming language.
Stimulus Presentation: Text, images, sounds, in different formats.
Output: Files.
Reference: http://www.pstnet.com/e-prime/default.htm
Cost: Minimum of $695 for one user.
Distributor: Psychology Software Tools, Inc., 2050 Ardmore Boulevard, Suite 200, Pittsburgh, PA 15221-4610 USA. Telephone: 412.271.504 Fax 412.271.7077 E-Mail: info@pstnet.com for general information regarding products and services sales@pstnet.com for specific information
Support: Technical support via email and possibly by phone.
Intended Users/Comments: Research Scientists.
EYE LINES
Platform: Runs on any Macintosh, but does not yet have a native Power Mac version.
Interface: Mouse operated menus, dedicated spreadsheets.
Stimulus Presentation: Line drawings, PICT graphics, Includes a vector drawing program.
Output: Method of Adjustment. Subjects use the mouse to adjust length, orientation angle, or brightness of specified stimulus element(s). The program records the results (and can compare them to preset target values to compute error.) Sorting module can configure data into a variety of spreadsheet formats.
Reference: Beagley, W. K. (1993) Eye Lines: Generating data through image manipulation, issues in interface design, and the teaching of experimental thinking. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, Computers, 25 (2) 333-336 Colbourn, C. (1992) Review of Eye Lines. Psychology Software News 3 (1) 9-11 (April) http://www.alma.edu/el
Cost: $99 for 6 copy site license, $199 for 20 copy site license
Distributor: W. K. Beagley. beagley@alma.edu
Support: Technical support via email .
Intended Users/Comments: Developed for measuring magnitudes of geometric illusions (Muller-Lyer, Zollner, Delboeuf, etc.) Includes illusion demonstrations and experiments. Also has modules for sensori-motor testing (reverse mirror drawing, rotary pursuit).
FREIBURG VISUAL ACUITY TEST
Platform: Macs.
Interface: Buttons and menu command.
Stimulus Presentation: Macintosh generated Landolt Cs, threshold estimated by Best PEST.
Output: Results are saved to the clipboard.
References: see http://www.ukl.uni-freiburg.de/aug/mit/bach/fat/index.html
Cost: Free.
Distributor: http://www.ukl.uni-freiburg.de/aug/mit/bach/fat/index.html
Support: Distributor
Intended Users/Comments: Anyone who needs to assess visual acuity and contrast sensitivity.
LITTLE STIMULUS MAKER
Platform: DOS recommended. Windows may be OK.
Interface: Menus and text prompts
Stimulus Presentation: Sinewave gratings, gaussian blobs, flicker, checkerboards, dynamic random dots, etc.
Output: Files on the PC.
Cost: Free
Distributor: http://faculty.washington.edu/jokelly/
Support: Electronic mail
Intended Users/Comments: Visual scientists.
MACPROBE
Platform: MacProbe is a 68K program that runs quite well on a PowerMac as long as you have an FPU emulator like SoftwareFPU installed.
Interface: MacProbe provides a C-like scripting language with over 200 high-level commands. The scripts can be edited interactively to speed up development. You can also create control panels with the familiar Macintosh controls (buttons, pop up menus etc) to provide a graphical front end for the user.
Stimulus Presentation: Any imported PICT or TIFF file. There's also a turtle-graphics language forgenerating images which can be algorithmically defined. Finally, you can manipulate pixel data as numeric arrays directly. You can also play sounds.
Output: The scripting language contains commands to output data to a text worksheet, to a file or to the presentation screen.
Reference: MacProbe: A Macintosh-based experimenter's workstaiton for the cognitive sciences Behavior Research Methods,Instruments Computers, 1994, 26(3) , 345-351.
Cost: $556.00 if purchased by academic or non-profit institution. $695.00 for other institutions.
Distributor: Direct Sales only. (I can fax order forms.) steve@aristo.com
Support: Email and fax.
Intended Users/Comments: Behavioral scientists.
MACSTIM
Platform: Macs, PowerPC.
Interface: Simple text-based script.
Stimulus Presentation: PICT images and sounds,QuickTime movies and text.
Output: Files
Cost: Shareware/$300 registration fee
Distributor: http://www.brainmapping.org/WhiteAnt/
ddarby@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU
Intended Users/Comments: Originally developed for presenting stimuli in fMRI experiments, this package can be used for more general purposes by behavioral scientists.MacStim has been updated and now has a separate fully functional (actually better) PowerPC version. This is compliant with MacOS 8.5 and 8.6. It will be updated to run on the Blue Box.
MATLAB TOOLBOX
Platform: Multi-platform: Mac, Win32 and Digital UNIX versions available on the site, as well as the C source code so that it can be compiled for any system.
Interface: MATLAB toolbox, or DOS/UNIX command-line (standalone version lacks graphical display functions)
Stimulus Presentation:
Output: MATLAB variables, which can be graphed and displayed (standalone version sends output to stdout or to named text files).
Cost: free
Distributor: http://bootstrap-software.org/psignifit/
Intended Users/Comments: For the maximum-likelihood fitting of psychometric functions, and computation of confidence intervals by the parametric bootstrap method.
MATVIS/WinVis
Platform: Windows
Interface: MATLAB functions
Stimulus Presentation: Provides support for conducting psychophysical experiments from within the MATLAB application on the PC platform.
Output: This package allows users to collect data from inside the MATLAB application. The data end up as MATLAB variables and all of MATLAB's power is then available to graph and display it.
Reference:
Cost: Subscription.
Distributor: See http://www.neurometrics.com/winvis/index.jsp
Support: developer
Intended Users/Comments: Designed for visual psychophysicists. Reported to work well.
MORPHONOME
Platform: Macs.
Interface: Menus.
Stimulus Presentation: A wide range of gray scale and colored patterns, either static or moving, with a wide range of parameters, such as spatial frequency, orientation, waveform, position, speed, envelope, contrast and masking noise. Up to four separate patterns may be displayed.
Output: The program is designed for the measurement of contrast thresholds by adjustment, staircase, and constant stimulus psychometric function psychophysics. The proprietary bit stealing algorithm provides contrast increments down to an accuracy of 0.2% without hardware modifications.
Reference: Tyler, C.W. & McBride, B. (1997) The Morphonome image psychophysics software and a calibrator for Macintosh systems. Spatial Vision 10(4): 479-484
Cost: $100-240 for the software package. $1200 for the automated Macintosh calibrator (optional), which also can be rented for $100 per week.
Distributor:
http://www.ski.org/CWTyler_lab
Support: Basic technical support via email. Program bugs fixed free of charge.
Intended Users/Comments: This package was designed to measure psychophysical contrast thresholds. Very flexible. Calibrator may be used to calibrate any Macintosh (II family and later) independently of the use of the Morphonome software.
THE OBSERVER
Platform: Macs.
Interface: Text and dialog boxes, organized in modules for design, timing, and elementary statistics.
Output: Under construction.
Cost: $1,740 (base package, academic price)
Distributor: Noldus Information Technology
International Headquarters:
Noldus Information Technology b.v., Costerweg 5, P.O. Box 268, 6700 AG Wageningen, The Netherlands
Phone: +31-(0)317-497677; Fax: +31-(0)317-424496
info@noldus.nl North America: Noldus Information Technology Inc., 6 Pidgeon Hill Drive, Suite 180, Sterling, VA 20165, U.S.A.
Phone: (703) 404-5506; Fax: (703) 404-5507 info@noldus.com or http://www.noldus.com
Support: Fax, telephone, or electron ic mail, via the distributor
Intended Users/Comments: Behavioral Scientists
PRESENTATION
Platform: Windows 95/98/2000
Interface: Text and dialog boxes.
Stimulus Presentation: 3D scenes with full control over motion, texture and lightingand viewer position. Also presents auditory, visual, and multi-modal stimuli, such as simple line drawings, photographs, and sounds. Streaming MPEG/AVI video with optional overlay of bitmap images. Real-time Matlab interface available to create stimuli on demand. Precise timing control with timing precision measured for all stimuli and responses. Provides high temporal precision data using standard PC response devices such as joysticks.. Can uses parallel and serial inputs for stimulus control. Presentation control language simplifies experiment development and permits stimulus delivery to be modified in real-time based on behavioral responses. Experiments can be published and downloaded from the Archives of Neurobehavioral Experiments and Stimuli on the NBS website. Analysis tools permit the classification and analysis of responses and can create files used by other analysis software.
Output:, Output control pulses of all kinds are available on parallel and serial ports or via digital I/O.
Cost: Free for 45 days. Thereafter, $200/yr for a single PC-license up to $900/yr for 10-PC licenses with multi-year discounts. See www.neurobs.com for pricing details.
Distributor: Neurobehavioral Systems, Inc., www.neurobs.com
Support: Electronic mail, via the distributor. Consulting available.
Intended Users/Comments: Neuroscientists, experimental psychologists, and psychophysicists.
PSYCHLAB
Platform: Not developed for the PowerMac. According to the distributor: "I did some preliminary testing, it looks good and okay. It certainly runs okay, synchronization of screen seems good, timing response are checked initially, they all run okay. I can put down 90% okay, but since it may affect your test results and research, I do not want to take any chance. But PsychLab will be programmed and completely tested under PowerMac in the near future, but I cannot guarantee a date now. That will be in the next version of PsychLab. If you need absolutely to run PsychLab on a PowerMac very soon, let me know, and see if we can work something out."
Interface: Easy menu driven interface, with text-based input files. It comes with some sample experiments and input files.
Stimulus Presentation: Can display text in any font, size, and style; pictures in MacPaint or PICT format; sound in SoundWave, SoundEdit, Sys 7, ' snd', resource format.
Output: Under construction.
Cost: $350 (free demo version available via e-mail, US$5 demo disk via regular mail)
Distributor: teren@m5.sprynet.com
Mailing address: PsychLab, 3175 Toupin Boul., St-Laurent, Quebec Canada H4K1Y9
Fax: 1 (514) 221-2028 (with one minute voice mail)
Phone: 1 (888) 503-4165 (U.S. toll-free fax with one min. voice mail)
Support: Supported through the distributor.
Intended Users/Comments: If there are problems with the PowerMac, the programmers will fix the problems. This is a general purpose experimental program.
PSYCHOPHYSICA
Platform: Macs.
Interface: Mathematica Notebooks based on the VideoToolbox.
Stimulus Presentation: Calibrated grayscale displays.
Output: Fits and plots psychometric data.
Reference: Watson, A.B. and Solomon, J.A. (1997) Psychophysica: MathematicaNotebooks for Psychophysical Experiments. Cinematica - Psychometrica - Quest.Spatial Vision 10: 447-466; Solomon, J. A. and Watson, A. B. (1996) Cinematica: A system for calibrated,Macintosh-driven displays from within Mathematica. Behavior Research Methods,Instruments, & Computers, 28, 607-610.
Cost: Free.
Distributor:
http://vision.arc.nasa.gov/mathematica/psychophysica/
Support: none
Intended Users/Comments: Designed for visual psychophysicists.
PSYCHOPHYSICAL C ROUTINES
Platform: DOS
Interface: Text-based
Stimulus Presentation: Via user-supplied routines for DOS devices
Output: To ascii text files
Cost: Free (without guarantees or support)
Distributor:
Don MacLeod, dmacleod@ucsd.edu
Support: distributor
Intended Users/Comments: psychophysicists
PSYCHOPHYSICS TOOLBOX
Platform: Windows and Macs.
Interface: MATLAB functions based on the VideoToolbox.
Stimulus Presentation: The Psychophysics Toolbox provides support for conducting psychophysical experiments from within the MATLAB application on the Macintosh platform. In particular, it provides access to the display frame buffer and color lookup table, synchronization with vertical retrace, user input, and timing.
Output: This package allows users to collect data from inside the MATLAB application. Thus the data end up as MATLAB variables and all of MATLAB's power is then available to graph and display it.
Reference: Brainard, D.H. (1997) The Psychophysics Toolbox. Spatial Vision 10: 433-446 (PDF)
Cost: Free.
Distributor: http://psychtoolbox.org/
Support: developer
Intended Users/Comments: Designed for visual psychophysicists and teachers. It includes courseware (software and accompanying papers) for teaching an undergraduate class. Designed for the Mac.Windows version is still beta.
PsychoPy
Platform: Platform independent (tested on Windows, MacOS X).
Interface: High-level scripting language (Python, using OpenGL).
Stimulus Presentation: Primarily provides tools to control timing and windowing and a simple set of pre-packaged stimuli, such as gabors, text, bitmapped images. Easy access to OpenGL libraries for more specialised stimuli. In-built support for CRS Bits++ ( <http://www.crsltd.com/bits++/ ) and PR650 spectrometer.
Output: Routines are included to help record data (keypresses, RT's...) and save as either native files or raw text outputs. Python also has libraries for more elaborate analysis and plotting.
Cost: Free.
Distributor: http://www.psychopy.org
Support: Distributor (e-mail).
Intended Users/Comments: Psychophysicists, preferably with a little programming experience (Python is a little harder than Matlab initially, but easier than C).
PSYSCOPE
Platform: Not developed for the PowerMac. Additional hardware may need to be purchased for accurate 1 ms timing with the PowerMac. Otherwise, there are no known problems with the PowerMac.. here is a project started by several labs for porting the program to os x; it is under way, see http://psy.ck.sissa.it
Interface: Graphics and Scripting.
Stimulus Presentation: Time, Text, Paragraph, Document, PICT, PasteBoard, Input, KeySequence, Sound, Button Box Output, and Movies.
Output: Key/mouse/button_box input, reaction time, and key sequence. This can be greatly extended by the ability of the button box to track additional events.
Reference:
BRMIC Vol.25 (2) 257-271.
Cost: Free
Distributor:
http://psyscope.psy.cmu.edu/
Support: Via participation in a consortium, which can cost $2000, and informally, through mailing lists
Intended Users/Comments: A general purpose, easy-to-use program, which allows users to present picture, text, and sound files, and record responses and reaction times.
PXLab: The Psychological Experiments Library
Platform: Windows, Unix, Macintosh (any system which has a Java Virtual Machine implementation).
Hardware Interface: A collection of Java (Version 1.4 or later) packages including stimulus objects, a runtime control system, and response collection. Packages may be included into other programs or experiments my be set up using a graphical and interactive experimental design editor. Experiments are controlled by experimental design files which are ASCII text files and may be created by any text editor. Experiments can run as stand alone applications or as applets on a HTML-page.
Stimuli: Any type of stimulus is possible. Collection currently contains mainly optical stimuli. Color management and calibration is included.
Output: ASCII data files, format may be configured freely.
Cost: Freeware, including source.
Distributor: Prof. Dr. Hans Irtel, see: http://www.pxlab.de
Support: Limited support, send an E-Mail to the developer. Many examples may be found on the system鈙 WWW-site.
Intended Users/Comments: Vision researchers and teachers.
RSVP
Platform: No problems have been reported with the PowerMac.
Interface: Manipulation of scripts in a C-like experimental control language. Uses the VideoToolbox
Stimulus Presentation: PICT files and text strings, quicktime movies, and sound files can be presented. The experimenter can have any combination and as many of these presented on any trial as needed (i.e., you could show a movie, then two PICTs, then a sound in one trial).
Output: Data is saved in text files, one file per subject. The experimenter specifies what information gets saved in the output text file.
Distributor: http://www2.psy.mq.edu.au/~tbates/admin/RSVP/RSVP_main.html
pepper.williams@umb.edu
Intended Users/Comments: Psychophysicists. RSVP does not currently work with Virtual Memory turned on. Limited support is available by
SHOWTIME
Platform: Works with the PowerMac.
Interface: Scripting in your choice of languages.
Stimulus Presentation: Quicktime movies displayed from different programming languages, such as Mathematica, MatLab, Visual Basic.
Output: No output. It is a display component only.
Reference:
See http://vision.arc.nasa.gov/showtime/publications.html
Cost: Free.
Distributor: http://vision.arc.nasa.gov/showtime/introduction.html
Support: http://vision.arc.nasa.gov/showtime/introduction.html
Intended Users/Comments
SUPERLAB
Platform: Version 2.0 was developed for the PowerMac. Version, 1.7, is reported to work well with the PowerMac.
Interface: Graphics and Simple Scripting.
Stimulus Presentation: SuperLab for Macintosh supports the standard PICT file format in all its variations, including black and white, gray scale, 16 million colors, etc. It also supports System 7 sound files in all its variations, as well, including 8- and 16-bit sounds, sounds compressed 3-to-1 or 6-to-1, mono and stereo sounds. Additional types of stimuli allow SuperLab to generate signals or pulses through the serial port(s) or through one of the supported i/o card models.
Output: Collected data is saved in a tab-delimited text file that can be imported into any spreadsheet or statistical package.
Reference:
BRMIC Vol.25(3) 400-405
Cost: $480 for educational institutions, $595 for others
Distributor: Cedrus Corporation, email: superlab@cedrus.com, WWW address: http://www.cedrus.com, phone: (800)233-7871 or (602) 631 9044
Support: by telephone, e-mail, and fax
Intended Users/Comments: Behavioral scientists.
TEMPO
Platform: Windows or DOS
Interface: TEMPO/Win uses the standard Windows Graphical User Interface/ TEMPO/Dos, an DOS based version of the software, uses a textual interface.
Stimulus Presentation: TEMPO can communicate with a variety of external stimulus devices and computers. TEMPO uses standard SVGA video cards on the PC.
Reference:
Cost:
Distributor: Shel Hoffman, Reflective Computing, 917 Alanson Dr, St. Louis, MO 63132 USA, (314) 993-6132 voice, (314) 993-3316 fax, Sheldon@ReflectiveComputing.com
Support: Personal Technical Support is available. Program Updates subscription is available. Training is available.
Intended Users/Comments: Scientists who do single unit recording with primates, evoked potentials, eye blinks, eye saccades, receptive field mapping and a variety of visual and auditory tasks involving awake, behaving subjects. Ideal for experiments that require stimulus presentation synchronized with subject monitoring and analog/spike data acquisition.
TSCOPE
Platform: Extremely simple-to-use tachistoscope program, compatible with any Mac (including PowerMac). User can customize either sets of trials or individual trials.
Interface: Easy-to-use graphic interface.
Stimulus Presentation: Within each trial, user can specify whether a fixation point is to be displayed, the timing of the first stimulus field, the timing of a mask, and then the timing of a second stimulus field (e.g., for presenting probe items, or follow-up stimuli). Individual stimuli are drawn, trial by trial, from a text file; this file can also specify the stimulus duration for each individual trial, and the type of mask for that trial..
Output: Data are saved in text files, one file per subject. The experimenter specifies what information gets saved in the output text field (e.g., specific key-presses, RT, or both).
Reference: An earlier version was described in: Doenias, J., Langland, S. and Reisberg, D. (1992). A versatile, user-friendly tachistoscope for the Macintosh. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, Computers, 24, 434-438.
Cost: $20.
Distributor: Daniel Reisberg, email: reisberg@reed.edu
Support: Limited support.
Intended Users/Comments: Control of design: TScope provides excellent control over the sequence of trials. The overall sequence can be divided into trial blocks, and then, within each block, the user can specify a set sequence, or can randomize the trials, or can specify a constrained randomization. Data can then be stored either in the sequence of actual trial presentation, or in a sequence corresponding to the order of stimuli in the stimulus file.
Limits: TScope is designed to be easily learned and easily used, and is capable of running a wide range of procedures (including procedures that require careful timing, but not brief presentations -- such as list-learning studies). However, TScope is also limited to presenting text files, in a single font and color.
VIDEOTOOLBOX
Platform: Runs well on the PowerMac.
Interface: C language.
Stimulus Presentation: The provided routines handle the dirty work of taking an array of numbers that describe a stimulus and accurately rendering it as an image or movie. The VideoToolbox routines take care ofall the intricasies of achieving accurate luminance and timing (including sound) on a Mac. It's up to the user to create the high-level program that generates the array of numbers. The QUEST C package, for threshold estimation, is provided as well.
Output: None to speak of. The routines present stimuli and collect responses. The user is expected to provide the high level program to drive them.
Reference: Pelli, D.G. (1997) The VideoToolbox software for visual psychophysics: Transforming numbers into movies. Spatial Vision 10: 437-442 (HTML)
Cost: Free.
Distributor:
http://vision.nyu.edu/VideoToolbox/
Support: none.
Intended Users/Comments: A flexible and powerful collection of 200 C subroutines for users who are comfortable with programming and know their hardware. This collection is the basis for other available experimental software packages, such as Psychophysics Toolbox (for MATLAB), Psychophysica (for Mathematica), and RSVP.
Vision Egg
Platform: Platform independent.
Interface between Python and openGL
Stimulus Presentation: In addition to methods for automatic generation of traditional visual stimuli such as sinusoidal gratings and random dot patterns, it has a number of functions for moving numeric data, images, movies, text, and 3D objects to and from your video card in realtime and allowing use of some of its features like perspective distortion. Therefore, it is also useful for anyone wishing to make use of the features of today's graphics cards.
Cost: Free.
Distributor:
http://www.visionegg.org/
Intended Users/Comments: Psychophysicists/Experimental psychologists.
VPixx
Platform: PowerMac
Interface: Graphical Interface, Drag-and-Drop, Scripting, High-Level Programming. Also has an interactive receptive-field mapping mode.
Stimulus Presentation: Frame-synchronized rectangle, oval, arc, text, and imported PICT shapes containing static or dynamic gratings, windmills, concentric circles, looming circles, uniform fields, gaussian blobs, checkerboards, binary/uniform/gaussian noise, drifting/rotating/looming dots, and custom patterns defined by general "C" expressions or imported from PICT files. Multiple patterns can be combined additively or multiplicitively generating plaids, gabors, second-order stimuli etc. Stimulus chromaticities can be specified in RGB, LMS (cone contrast), or CIE XYZ, Lxy, Lu'v', L*u*v* and L*a*b*. Can also present most sound files.
Output: Method-of-constant-stimuli subject events, reaction-times and event durations. Adaptive staircase thresholds. All data stored to MicroSoft Excel files for easy graphing or further analysis. Also can export dynamic stimuli as QuickTime movies for teaching or web publishing.
Cost: $4000 for three testing stations, includes 1 day of custom programming
Distributor:
http://www.vpixx.com
Support: Unlimited free email and phone support for licensed researchers and their students
Intended Users/Comments: Researchers and teachers in the fields of psychophysics, electrophysiology, cognition, and fMRI. Free demo, VPixx User Guide, and sample stimuli available at http://www.vpixx.com. Custom programming and hardware design/interfacing services available.
VSG Software Library for the Visual Stimulus Generator
Platform: Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT 4 Requires: VSG2/5*, VSG2/4, VSG2/3 or VSG2/2 visual stimulus generator Software \
Interface: multi-layer software system to suit all levels of programming ability. Includes drag&drop visual components for Borland Delphi and C++Builder, plus high-level APIs for Borland Delphi and C++Builder, Microsoft Visual C++ and Visual Basic, and MathWorks MATLAB *VSG2/5
Hardware Interface: proprietary PCI graphics card, 15 bit output resolution per colour channel for ultra fine control of colour and contrast, dedicated on-board look-up table processor to guarantee timing under Windows, 8 & 24 bits per pixel gamma-corrected video modes for all types of visual stimuli, 150 MHz pixel rates and programmable frame rates to 500 Hz to drive all analogue raster-based display devices, 8 MB Video RAM (expandable to 32 MB) for storing images, 8 MB DRAM for storing programs, look-up tables and off-screen images, hardware reaction timing, integrated analogue and digital I/O interface for synchronisation and communication with external systems Stimulus Presentation: virtually any 2D visual stimulus, including solid shapes, gratings, Gabors, dots and real images, plus extra support for stereoscopic and binocular presentations
Output: The VSG Software Library provides a suite of software tools to generate visual stimuli and collect psychophysical or evoked responses using a Visual Stimulus Generator. The end-user must write a PC program using one of the supported programming languages to implement the experiment and analyse the data
Cost: VSG systems are available from US$7500 (includes VSG2/5, VSG Software Library v6, full after-sale technical support & warranty package)
Distributor: Cambridge Research Systems Ltd., see: http://www.crsltd.com
Support: Unlimited free technical and programming support by email, 'phone or fax. Free software updates from http://www.crsltd.com
Intended Users/Comments: Cambridge Research Systems' Visual Stimulus Generators are designed specifically for vision science applications and have special hardware features for psychophysics and electrophysiology"
RELATED REVIEWS AND PAGES
EEG Toolbox Tools for advanced EEG data analysis under Matlab using ICA and time/frequency methods, http://sccn.ucsd.edu/eeglab/
Software for Psychophysics: An Overview http://www.visionscience.com/documents/strasburger.html
Tips for Psychophysics: Tips, by Denis Pelli and David Brainard, is a web site that has lots of practical advice on using computers to do visual psychophysics. Use the search command.
I appreciate the suggestions and comments from the developers and users of these products, from the members of CVnet, and from Denis Pelli, NYU (Videotoolbox author), who hosts this page on http://vision.nyu.edu/Tips/.
CONTACTING THE AUTHOR
Email: Faith Florer, flf@river.org
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