Interpersonal referential communication experiments with a small computer

A LINC-8 computer is used with a Tektronix 611 CRT for presenting verbal information, and a slide projector for displaying facial photographs in studies of interpersonal referential communication.     

PSYCHOBASIC: A BASIC dialect for the control of psychological experiments with the Commodore-64 and DELA interfacing

A modified version of BASIC for the control of psychological experiments is presented. PSYCHOBASIC runs on Commodore-64 computers with DELA interfacing, and it is based on Commodore BASIC. New commands control digital and analog input and output, centisecond timers, and counters. A control panel, which is displayed on the screen at all times, gives the status of many PSYCHOBASIC components. The interpreted nature of PSYCHOBASIC, as well as the control panel, makes the system easy to learn and use. The PSYCHOBASIC system is less expensive than equivalent systems for IBM-PC computers. A sample PSYCHOBASIC program is given.     

A computer running several psychological laboratories

Seven psychological laboratories, capable of testing 22 human and 4 animal Ss in seven different experiments using a variety of peripheral equipment, are in various stages of operation using an IBM 1800 process-control computer in the Psychology Department at Indiana University. Each experiment utilizes four appropriate software programs: SETUP, PROCEDURE, UI1LITY, and OUTPUT. The programming is usually simple enough to be done by nonprofessional programmers. This simplification was made possible by (1) a set of subroutines written to handle many of the process-control programming complexities, and (2) the IBM-provided Time-Sharing Executive (TSX) program.     

Some experiments with computer synthesized speech

The generation of satisfactory artificial speech involves a great variety of semantic, linguistic, and articulatory factors. Many of these complex elements are as yet unknown, and computers are used extensively for their investigation. An account of an on-line, interactive computer facility used for such research at Bell Laboratories is given. The use of this facility for exploring the duration and pitch correlates of stress in English sentences is described.     

A computer lab for undergraduate psychological research

This paper describes how funds from an NSF Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement grant allowed development of a computer lab with a local area network (LAN) for undergraduate research in psychology. The lab has been used mainly in conjunction with an applications of research methods course, but expanded use is expected because of the connection of the LAN to a mainframe computer’s LAN, the proposed installation of PSYCLIT on the LAN, and the proposed connection of the LAN to faculty offices. The main experimental software packages used are MEL Lab and Micro Experimental Laboratory (MEL); both are critical to the lab’s operation. Funds for maintenance of the lab will be obtained by charging applications course students a lab fee.     

A software system for real-time control of psychological experiments

This paper describes an all-purpose experimental system, “APES,” for use in a microprocessor-controlled behavioral pharmacology laboratory. APES is an assembly language program that can run on any of the DEC PDP-11 family processors under an RT-11 single-job operating system. Its main purpose is the real-time control of psychological experimentation. The capabilities of the system are: (1) system generation of all operant or Pavlovian conditioning paradigms, (2) collection and storage of both behavioral and physiological data in a machine-readable format for later statistical analysis, and (3) operation that can be accomplished by individuals who have no computer programming experience.     

A decentralized computer network for supervision of multiple psychological laboratories

The computer network described was designed to optimize the use of a number of independent minicomputers as a single integrated system for process control of several research laboratories. The implementation of the network required both the development of a special purpose interprocessor interface and the design of a software support system to direct network operations. The network was designed according to the familiar “star” configuration, with the exception that the central computer in the star does not exercise exclusive supervisory control over the system. Rather, each computer on the system “sees” the central computer as a peripheral similar in characteristics to a medium speed I/O device. This design allows each computer to serve not only as a node in the network, but also as an entirely independent process controller.     

ChoiceKey: A real-time speech recognition program for psychology experiments with a small response set

Psychological experiments often collect choice responses using buttonpresses. However, spoken responses are useful in many cases—for example, when working with special clinical populations, or when a paradigm demands vocalization, or when accurate response time measurements are desired. In these cases, spoken responses are typically collected using a voice key, which usually involves manual coding by experimenters in a tedious and error-prone manner. We describe ChoiceKey, an open-source speech recognition package for MATLAB. It can be optimized by training for small response sets and different speakers. We show ChoiceKey to be reliable with minimal training for most participants in experiments with two different responses. Problems presented by individual differences, and occasional atypical responses, are examined, and extensions to larger response sets are explored. The ChoiceKey source files and instructions may be downloaded as supplemental materials for this article from brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

A 6809 single-board computer system for the control of behavioral experiments

A computer system consisting of a 6809 single-board computer in conjunction with an IBM-compatible Personal Computer (PC) is described for the control of behavioral experiments. The single-board computer uses the C programming language to program experimental events. Each component of the system (the single-board computer, a digital interface, the PC, and the software) is outlined with its capabilities and drawbacks noted.     

Luminance control of a small computer CRT display: A very cheap technique

An inexpensive way to produce continuous variation in the luminance of a computer-controlled CRT display is described. One application of that system to the study of motion-analyzers in human vision is discussed briefly.     

Results of a preliminary survey of computer users in psychological laboratories

A short questionnaire was distributed to a subset of the computer users connected with the National Conference on the Use of On-Line Computers in Psychology to determine the type of computer equipment used by psychologists and the current uses of that equipment. The results of this pilot study are discussed in this paper.     

Use of a campus-wide time-sharing computer to run reaction time experiments

The present paper describes a relatively inexpensive and easy to use system for running on-line reaction time experiments under the control of a campus-wide time-sharing computer. This system puts the computerized control of such experiments within the range of a majority of psychologists and has value both as a research tool and as an inexpensive way to introduce undergraduates to computerized experimentation.     

ARTIST: A computer system for creating and running psychology experiments

A flexible computer system for research and teaching experiments in psychology is described. Special features of the system include (1) separate phases for the generation and running of experiments, (2) facilities to control presentation of stimuli according to any factorial design, and (3) different modes of operation depending on the prior knowledge of the users. The system is evaluated both in terms of the range of experiments that can be performed and in terms of the time and effort required to create new experiments or modify old ones. General principles for designing interactive systems are discussed in the light of experiences with this particular system.     

A general-purpose computer system for behavioral conditioning and neural recording experiments

A computer system designed to control the delivery of stimuli and data acquisition during behavioral conditioning and neural recording experiments is described. This IBM-PC-compatible system is programmed in C++ and is capable of controlling stimulus presentations to four independently operating conditioning chambers while collecting one channel of analog and two channels of digital data from each of the chambers. This system is currently being used in a variety of learning and memory experiments involving rats, rabbits, and humans.