Millisecond Forums

Connecting Inquisit to other Hardware

https://forums.millisecond.com/Topic11723.aspx

By lukeholmes - 11/26/2013

Hi everyone,


I'm very new to this so I have to apologise in advance for my utter ignorance on the subject. I am helping to set up an experiment which will involve measuring of pupil dilation using EyeLink and also genital arousal using BIOPAC. Inquisit will present stimuli on one computer, while the other hardware runs on a computer each, and the plan was to connect them with parallel ports.


The person who is in charge of the experiment is more comfortable with Mac computers than Windows, and was asking if the Mac version of Inquisit has an alternative to parallel ports which we could use, since fitting a PCI parallel port isn't an option on a Mac. Failing that, has Inquisit's support of parallel ports been made easier in the more recent versions? The person in charge said that the last time he created a setup like this, getting that aspect of it working was extremely time-consuming.


Also, I was told to look at the manual for more information but unfortunately it hasn't been as great a help as I had hoped. The discussion seemed to be centred around using a Cedrus button for the control lines, but I've not been able to find any clarification on what exactly this entails.



Thanks in advance for any answers, and sorry for the long post.


--Luke Holmes

By Dave - 11/26/2013

if the Mac version of Inquisit has an alternative to parallel ports


At present: Serial port or -- perhaps -- using a Cedrus StimTracker if available (see the docs for the <xid> element for details).


Inquisit's support of parallel ports been made easier in the more recent versions?


Hard to give a sensible answer in lack of any details why getting it to work was time consuming. Preliminary answer thus: Somewhat.


Also, I was told to look at the manual for more information but unfortunately it hasn't been as great a help as I had hoped. The discussion seemed to be centred around using a Cedrus button for the control lines, but I've not been able to find any clarification on what exactly this entails.


Some Cedrus boxes have an accessory connector which can be used to attach external hardware to the box, then have the box forward signals to the PC via its USB connection.

By lukeholmes - 11/26/2013

Fantastic, thanks very much! Sorry for the lack of detail on this, I am a first year undergrad and am having to learn how to use all this software as fast as possible, it's a whole new world for me!


Will reply again once I have more info on this. Thanks again for the response :)