Response Time Box
What is it for?
The Response Time Box is designed to measure response
time with high accuracy. The microprocessor in the device records the time and
button identity. The host computer can read the information anytime when it is convenient.
Why do I need it?
Computer keyboard and mouse can be used to record response time to an event, such as visual or auditory stimulus. But you can get only the time when computer code reads an event, such as key press, not the time the event happens. Many things can affect the time difference between key press and event read, such as hardware sampling interval, debouncing interval, operating system, programming software, and user code etc. The variability makes the regular keyboard and mouse unusable for high-accuracy response time experiments. Our device avoids all of above problems, and will give you accurate time of an event.
Features and Specification
· Work on major computer systems (Windows, MAC and Linux)
· USB 1.1 and 2.0 compatible
· Measure both the button press and release time
· Built-in light port and sound port for trigger and calibration
· Four
buttons allowing user to label with descriptive names
· Receive input from external buttons and TTL such as
MRI-compatible keypads
· TTL output to control other devices
· TTL output for all button and trigger events, useful
for EEG recording
· Built-in firmware update feature, so the device will
never expire
· Time resolution: better than 0.1 ms
· Dimensions: 5.5 x 4.5 x 1 (h) inches, 14 x 11 x 2.5 (h) cm
· Weight: ~5 oz
· Some features are customizable. Feel free to ask.
What are in the package?
1. Response box
2. USB cable
3. Photodiode with rubber suction and cable
How does it work?
When the device is connected to a USB port of a computer, it will be recognized as a serial port. The device is USB powered.
Basically, the device detects button and port events with an interval less than 0.1 ms. When it detects an event, it sends the event code and time to the computer serial port. At the computer side, the device driver reads the data from serial buffer, identifies the event type, and calculates the response time.
The critical thing is to give the device a signal indicating onset of a stimulus. The device can receive three kinds of trigger for this purpose. The sound port receives an electrical pulse or sound signal, the light port receives light signal from the provided photodiode, and it can also receive a trigger from the computer serial port without additional hardware connection.
The trigger from serial port can also be used to synchronize the device clock with computer clock. Then the device driver can return computer time directly. If you have a computer-based stimulus onset time, such as those from Screen(‘flip’) of PsychToolbox 3, you don’t need any external trigger.
How to use it?
You have two ways to use the device to measure response time. If you have the stimulus timestamp based on your computer, the device can provide the time of response with the same timestamp. Then you do a subtraction to get the response time.
The second way is to provide a trigger to the device to indicate the onset of stimulus. The device will detect both trigger and button events. You get the response time by calculating the time difference between the two events.
We provide a driver code and demos based on the
free PsychToolbox
in MatLab, to use all the features of the device. For
detail principles, you can check our paper on Behavior Research
Methods.
The latest firmware, v1.8 and v4.3, can be downloaded.
How to calibrate it?
Ordering
Information
The price is $300 each for the response
box, plus shipping and handling, which is about $35 for the first one, and $10 each for additional ones.
Contact us
If you want to make an order, have question or suggestion about the device, please contact us by email xiangrui.li@gmail.com .
Last updated on 2/19/2012