Perception Lab
The Perception Lab is part of
ICCS and
HCRC in the
School of Informatics.
The lab is designed for the experimental study of human cognition. It
can also be used for experiments that investigate how humans interact
with artificial cognitive systems. It includes specialized soft- and
hardware for the accurate measurement of reaction times, and for the
presentation, recording, and analysis of speech data.
Location and Access
- The lab is located in room B.10, in the basement of the
Informatics Forum at 10 Crichton Street.
- As the lab is a shared facility, a booking
system is in place. The lab appears as "Perception Lab" on this
system, and the two banks (booths 1-4 and booths 5-8) are bookable
seperately. Anyone with a Dice account can make a booking, but the
bookings will be forwarded to the Lab
Supervisor for approval.
- Note that lab use by undergraduate and MSc students is only
allowed during the hours designated for non-qualifying use of the
Forum, see the Forum
Wiki for details.
Experimental Facilities
- The lab is equipped with two banks of four PCs running Windows XP.
- All machines are equipped with a PST Serial Response
Box for collecting accurate reaction time data. The response boxes
include voice keys and refresh detectors.
- The machines are also equipped with Logitech
Dual Action Gamepads, an alternative way of recording accurate
response times.
- For experiments involving audio stimuli, the lab includes Shure WH20-XLR
microphones and Sennheiser
EH2270 headphones.
- For head stabilization during experiments, Richmond
HCRD2R chin rests are available.
- The software installed on coglab1 and coglab2 includes E-Prime (Version
1.1) and DMDX
(Version 3.0) for developing and running experiments.
- E-Prime users might want to have a look at System for Teaching Experimental
Psychology, which includes an extensive archive of E-Prime
experimental scripts.
- The E-Prime license allows E-Studio (the development platform of
E-Prime) to be run only on one machine in each bank. This means that
you have to make sure that the dongle (the purple hardware key) is
plugged into the USB port of the machine that you want to use E-Studio
on, otherwise it won't run. Note that E-Run (the runtime version of
E-Prime) doesn't have this restriction; it can be run on all lab
machines at the same time.
- For statistical data analysis, SPSS (Version 14.0) is installed on
both machines. For some types of analysis, Microsoft Office can also be
useful.
Experimenter Account
- If you want to run experiments in the lab, an account will have to
be created for you on the lab PCs. Please contact the Lab Supervisor to arrange this.
- Your user name will be your University User Name (UUN).
- Standardly, experimenters are allocated only limited Windows
accounts on the lab PCs, which means that they are not able to install
new software or update existing software. This is necessary to ensure
integrity of the system and to prevent the spread of viruses and other
unwanted software. If you require installations or updates for your
work, please contact the Lab Supervisor.
Backups and Printing
- We are currently working on a backup solution for the lab. Until
then, users are expected to make their own backups. A convenient way
of doing this is by using the Informatics
Samba Service, which allows users to access their Dice home
directory under Windows. Note that you need to register for this
service.
Good Practice for Experiments
- An experienced researcher acts as the lab supervisor. He should be
contacted in case there are any questions or problems regarding the
lab.
- The lab supervisor is currently Frank Keller.
