![]() |
15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-15)Barcelona, Spain |
![]() |
Presenting auditory or visual stimuli and recording push-button reactions
with millisecond-precision is a common task in behaviouristic experiments.
Programming dedicated software on a computer system or using dedicated
hardware is usually time-consuming and depends usually on specific
computer hardware and/or software versions. Furthermore, precise timing
on a general purpose computer is problematic due to the unknown behaviour
of the operating system, even with nowadays very fast computers.
The concept of a Hard-Software-System is presented that is build around
a single-chip 8051-type micro-controller programmed in C, with a serial
or USB interface to a 'host'-computer, inputs for up to 16 3-buttons
panels with headphone outputs, a switched VGA-channel, and an audio-interface
for a CD/DAT/MD-player that controls the system with sample-precise
timing instructions. The presentation here is not a complete description
of a hard- and software but rather the main concepts are presented
to allow the self-assembly by a technician.
Bibliographic reference. Reetz, Henning / Kleinmann, Achim (2003): "Multi-subject hardware for experiment control and precise reaction time measurement", In ICPhS-15, 1489-1492.