Data Acquisition Toolbox, NI DAQ cards, and dual monitors

1
Hi folks,

I am wondering if anyone out there has used the Psych Toolbox in
conjunction with the Data Acquisition Toolbox and a National
Instruments card.

We have a Bouis eye tracker where the controlling box outputs X and Y
coordinates via BNC cables. NI makes a connector box and shielded
cable for their least expensive card, the 6023E, which is in turn
supported by the DAQ toolbox.

I want to hook up the tracker to the NI card, and have it record data
on each trial. The people at Mathworks assured me that the DAQ
toolbox can accept signals from other toolboxes, so I could turn
recording on when a stimulus image is presented, and turn it off when
the image is removed.

Can anyone tell me if Psych Toolbox can issue these types of commands
to the DAQ toolbox at the same time it's putting images on screen and
taking them down?

Doing this is absolutely essential to my dissertation research.

I'm planning on using Matlab 6 for Windows, Windows 2000, and the
Windows version of Psych Toolbox, since Mathworks does not offer the
DAQ toolbox for the Mac version of MATLAB.

Also, can anyone tell me if I'll be able to use dual monitors? I'd
like to set one for stimulus display only, showing a black screen
between trials, and the other for displaying the software controls for
the experimenter to use while conducting the research.

Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to provide,

Paul D. Thiem,
University of California, Santa Cruz
Bruce Bridgeman, Advisor
2

I am wondering if anyone out there has used the Psych Toolbox in
conjunction with the Data Acquisition Toolbox and a National
Instruments card.

yup.


I want to hook up the tracker to the NI card, and have it record data
on each trial.  The people at Mathworks assured me that the DAQ
toolbox can accept signals from other toolboxes, so I could turn
recording on when a stimulus image is presented, and turn it off when
the image is removed.

not a problem.  we do the same with an SRI DPI tracker.


I'm planning on using Matlab 6 for Windows, Windows 2000, and the
Windows version of Psych Toolbox, since Mathworks does not offer the
DAQ toolbox for the Mac version of MATLAB.

that's what we use too.


Also, can anyone tell me if I'll be able to use dual monitors?  I'd
like to set one for stimulus display only, showing a black screen
between trials, and the other for displaying the software controls for
the experimenter to use while conducting the research.

this you cannot currently do.  we use dual video card so we can drive both the workstation monitor and the stimulus monitor, but it only works in "mirror" mode, i.e. both monitors display the same thing.  sigh.  maybe someday the daq toolbox will rreleased for OS X...until then, we suffer with windoz...


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=====================
Lawrence K. Cormack, Ph.D.
University of Texas at Austin
 www.cps.utexas.edu
 www.utexas.edu/neuroscience
(512) 471-5380