Brain Imaging & Analysis Center

ShowPlay is designed to automatically record a variety of behavioral variables during any real-time paradigm. Behavioral recording is controlled by a few standard control variables. For recording physiological signals such as heart-beat or repiration you must have appropriate physiological transducer hardware installed and connected to your computer. Once enabled, behavioral signals are recorded throughout every ShowPlay paradigm without any modification to the paradigm itself.

Recording physiological signals involves 3 steps:

• 1 - configuring the computer hardware used for reading the signals
• 2 - setting the software control variables to indicate which channels to record
• 3 - connecting the physiological transducers to the subject and verifying their signals

Step 1 - Configuring the computer hardware
At the BIAC scanners, the default sysconfig.imp file automatically initializes:

• graphics - the display screen, keyboard, mouse, and most USB response boxes
• srbox - the EPrime Stimulus/Response box (also used for reading the scanner trigger signal)
• meascomp - the Measurement Computing analog/digital box (used for all Biopac physio i/o)
• eyetracker - connection to 2nd computer to read Viewpoint eyetracking signals
  

If those are all the devices you need you do not need to change the configuration.

If you do want to use different hardware devices, use CIGAL's Settings menu to create a customized hardware initialization file, which will be named “userconfig.imp” in your current folder.

To change devices, select: Settings → Configuration Settings
To turn on or off a device, set the initialization Order value (first col). Set to 0 to not use.
Each device will have several parameter options, which should default to optimal values.

Step 2 - Setting the software control variables
Using CIGAL's Settings menu, select: Hardware Settings

Turn on the data channels you want to record. These are typically digio, keybd/mouse, cardiac, respiration, and eye-position. The channel numbers should be correct by default. For a list of all hardware and channel connections at the BIAC scanners check Device Inventory.

To record efficiently on the MeasComp box, click the analog scan sampling box On.

Step 3 - Verifying physiological transducer signals

Using CIGAL's Display menu, select: Show Behavior and then choose Real-time values.

See Also:

Device connections at BIAC

ShowPlay Tutorial, ShowPlay Home, ShowPlay Manual, CIGAL Home, CIGAL Manual,