SuperLab 6.3: It’s All About Event Markers

The title says it all: today’s release of SuperLab 6.3 is all about sending TTL event markers. But first:

Do not update to version 6.3 (or later) of SuperLab if your experiment uses events of type Digital Output and you are in the middle of a study.

With that note of caution out of the way, there are two major changes in version 6.3.

Asynchronous Digital Output

Imagine for a moment that you have a lab assistant and you ask him to perform a task that takes 10 minutes. The trouble is that this assistant is not very smart and you have to supervise him for 10 minutes. You did not save any time at all!

This is how sending event markers has been in SuperLab up until recently: the output device had to be supervised. For example, to send a 10ms TTL pulse, SuperLab would need to raise the line, wait for 10ms, and then lower the line. In the world of psychology research and psychophysiology, 10ms is a l-o-n-g time.

Starting with SuperLab 6.3, TTL event markers are now sent asynchronously. SuperLab sends the device a command to produce an event marker that is 10ms long and continues with its own work — no pausing. The device has its own timer and is intelligent enough to lower the line after 10ms.

Undoubtedly, asynchronous output improves timing. But it does mean that timing will be different if you have collected data with versions prior to 6.3. That’s why this blog post started with a note of caution.

Another consequence is that the output device needs to be smart enough. A few months ago, we mentioned dropping support for older devices. Going forward, the only supported hardware are:

And of course, all future Cedrus products.

Older products such as SV-1 or RB-730 response pad are still supported as input devices even though they are no longer supported for output.

Automatic Event Markers

You read this right: automatic. Click on the Experiment menu and select Event Markers:

Select the output line and then enable which the type(s) of event marker that you want sent on that line. That’s it. For stimulus types like Self Paced Reading or RSVP, this feature will produce an event marker for every segment.

More Convenience

You will notice in SuperLab 6.3 that there is nothing to configure for sending TTL output, not even a product. You could build an experiment and test it using your c-pod and then share it with a colleague who has StimTracker. It will just work.

On occasion, you could be working on an experiment that requires, say, StimTracker. It is in the lab but you are elsewhere. With version 6.3, you can tell SuperLab that a device is optional and just keep building the experiment.

We hope you enjoy these improvements.