Facilities

EyeLink II

A head-mounted eye tracker is available for accurate eye-movement recordings in lab 410a.  The Eyelink II is used extensively in eye movement research, with a number of MATLAB scripts available on the Internet for tailoring the eye tracker to your needs.  If you are note versed in MATLAB, the Eyelink comes with standard WYSIWYG software packages for building experiments and viewing data, both of which are fairly intuitive to the non-programmer.  Currently the eye-tracker is attached to a flatscreen display, and may not be suitable for lower-level vision researchers. With the head-mounted scene camera, this eye-tracker can also be used for social interactions, engaging with real objects or any other use away from a computer monitor. Quick Guide (PDF)

SMI Red remote eye tracker

A remote eye tracker is also available in room 449.  The SMI Red consists of a host laptop from which the software runs and a remote camera (underneath the monitor in the above picture).  The system can be transported off-site, allowing for eye movement recordings of participants in their own homes (particularly useful for clinical or infant populations) or at venues (e.g. science festivals) with the use of the camera mount (in the above picture, left of monitor).  A particularly advantageous aspect of the BeGaze software provided is that it is able to record fixation position at a region of interest (e.g. looking at the 'face' region), and track this region if it moves (e.g. in video playback).

Linear video: Panasonic HDC-HS60 Camcorder

A digital hand-held camcorder can be mounted to a tripod for a fixed viewing position.  With a wide-angle lens, it is possible to capture much of what happens in the lab even at short distances from the camera in high resolution (1920 x 1080).  The camera has an internal memory of 120GB HDD, allowing for 15 to 51 hours of recording time.  There is also room to plug in your own SDXC card to record your videos to directly, allowing for easy transportation of data. Stored in 449

Spherical video: LadyBug2

A discrete pod houses 6 lenses that can capture video for 85% of a complete sphere, including 360 degrees horizontally around the camera.  Because it does not look like a camcorder, this camera is perfect for discretely capturing behaviour.  Note that the ladybug captures a set of stills which it later processes into a video form: the advantage is that there are a set of still images for presentations and publications, but has the disadvantage that even short videos are memory-heavy.  Finally, the ladybug2 does not have synchronised audio capture, unlike the linear video camcorder. Stored in 449.

Vicon Nexus Body Motion Tracker

Vicon Nexus body capture equipment allows for recording of participants movements in room 449.  Small spherical reflectors are attached to a participant, either directly or onto a body capture suit (provided by the lab), or other moving item and reflect near infra-red lights back to 6 vicon cameras that can be placed to capture around the lab or moved to suit your specific project.  Movements are captured at ~200Hz to an accuracy of 1mm cubed.  Provided the linear digital video camera is calibrated, the captured motion can be overlayed onto the video recording of the behaviour (useful for checking your data and for presentations).  Whilst built for short recording periods, it is suitable for longer recording periods (although it is not recommended that periods last longer than a minute or two).

Dell Touchscreen

A touchscreen allows users to interact with the screen by manual touch rather than by mouse, keyboard or other peripheral input. Can be useful for studies involving motor control or collecting measures available from manual response times. Stored in 446

Biopac Student Lab (BSL), MP36

Can collect a range of physiological measures, including EKG/ECG, GSR, respiratory rate, pulse and blood pressure. This student edition comes with tutorials for first-time users. Stored in 449. Note that any consumables must be purchased by yourself, although not all uses of the kit will require a consumable. 100 gel electrodes (2 per participant) cost £38.00 (as of July 2012).