Button-box in Psychopy

[shark_scott]

Hi,
I need to do some response-time experiments and was looking to
purchase a response-box. The people developing PsyscopeX are making
their software integrate with the USB response-box from ioLab
systems. Would this response-box be useable in Psychopy as well?
Would a different response-box be more appropriate? I'd like to have
the response-box be portable between Windows and Mac, that's why it
would be nice to use USB. How accurate/precise would Psychopy's time-
stamps from a USB response-box be?
Thanks!
Mark

[Jonathan O. Roberts]

The folks who make the PsyscopeX button box (http://www.iolab.co.uk) provide a python library for accessing their button box. I have incorporated it (with one minor change) into a psyschopy program to test getting button responses and sending triggers to external devices, but I have not tried to test the timing accuracy/reliability. The ioLab button box is very well designed. It is sturdy, using pinball machine like buttons. It has a sophisticated voice key built in, and can be used to send TTL pulses to external devices. It also has an internal clock and can report to you the internal times when events occur. Since the bbox clock and the computer's clock might run at slightly different speeds, you must synchronize the bbox clock with the computer's clock to measure response latencies accurately for stimuli presented on the screen. The way they do this in Psyscope is to reset both clocks, wait for a long time and then read both clocks. From this they calculate a correction factor. The few times I went through this process the clock in the dual core duo iMac I tested did not differ significantly from the button box over a several minute period.

If it would be helpful to you or the group, I can condense my test program, add comments to make it more readable, and make it available.

-Jon
---------------------------
Jonathan O. Roberts
I.T. Professional IV
Computer Laboratory for Instruction in Psychological Research
University of Colorado at Boulder

> --
>
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "psychopy-users" group.
> To post to this group, send email to psychop...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to psychopy-user...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/psychopy-users?hl=en.
>
>

[Jeremy Gray]

I'd appreciate a copy of your test program, Jon, and any notes or advice. I have a couple of the ioLabs boxes, would be cool to use them with psychopy too.

thanks,

--Jeremy

[shark_scott]

Hi,
Thanks for such a fast reply. If it would be of use to others, I
would certainly like to see the test program - though I still haven't
decided between the ioLab response-box and the Cedrus one (which is
cheaper).
Thanks!
Mark

On Dec 30, 1:00 pm, "Jonathan O. Roberts" <jonathanorobe...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[jon.p...@googlemail.com]

From their website ioLab are also keen to collaborate with people writing experimental design software. I've just written an email pointing them towards PsychoPy and suggesting that we might be mutually beneficial. If they already have a python library written it shouldn't be too hard to create an interface similar to that of the cedrus box, where we could do something like;
from psychopy.hardware import ioLabBox
box = ioLabBox()
buttons = box.getPressed()

Jon