Knowledge Base

Analysis of Trial Control Data

Notes

If the interval specified in the step above occurs in multiple instances, the program considers the total time line included in those intervals to calculate durations, frequencies etc.

If your experiment includes multiple subjects per arena, the Nesting over Subjects group of options is also available. Select Trial Control state under Nesting over Subjects if you want to define an interval based on what one or more of the subjects do during the trial. For example, to define an interval that goes from the action "Cue light on" when activated, to the condition "Subject 1 in zone A" when it becomes true. Click the Actors tab and select the subject that the condition refers to.

Analysis will be done for all the subjects, in the interval defined by Subject 1. Note that conditions can be met by specific subjects, while actions cannot be triggered by specific subjects. However, they can be triggered indirectly, when an action follows a condition met by that subject.

For information on Nesting, see Analyze Track Segments in the EthoVision XT Help.

Trial Control Variables

You can analyze and visualize the values of the Trial Control variables defined in the Trial Control Settings. Use this function also for testing purposes. For example, to check that a Trial Control variable receives the value expected at a specific time.

1. In the Experiment Explorer, right-click Analysis Profiles and select New, or click an existing profile.
2. Click the Add button next to Trial Control variable and choose a variable from the list.
3. Calculate the statistics or plot the variable with the Integrated Visualization.

For more information, see the EthoVision XT Help.

Hardware Command

A Hardware command is a command given by the EthoVision software to your hardware device. You can define when and what hardware commands are sent as Actions in your Trial Control settings. For instance, you can have EthoVision send a command to your pellet dispenser to drop a pellet after the mouse has been detected in the Trigger zone. For more information about programming Trial Control, see Chapter 3.

How to Add a Hardware Command to an Analysis Profile

1. In the Experiment Explorer, right-click Analysis Profiles and select New, or click an existing profile.
2. Click the Add button next to Hardware command. The Hardware command window opens.
3. From the Device type list, select the hardware device you want to calculate statistics for. For example, if you want to analyze how many Drop pellet commands EthoVision gave to your pellet dispenser, select Pellet Dispenser (PTPD-001x).
4. In the Device list, the name of the hardware device will appear as you defined it when you assigned the device to the arena.
5. From the Command list, select which command you want to analyze. For instance, for the Phenotyper 1's Top Unit, you can select White spot on, White spot off, Yellow light on, Yellow light off, Sound on or Sound off. For other hardware devices (Pellet Dispenser, Lickometer) there is only one option.
6. Click the Trial Statistics tab to choose the statistics for the dependent variable. Next, click Add. Click the Group Statistics tab and select additional statistics if you want summarized statistics over all trials, or the groups of trials defined in your Data Profile. See Calculate Statistics in the EthoVision XT Help for details.

Application: Hardware Command

By selecting Hardware command as Dependent Variable, you can calculate the frequency of the commands the EthoVision software gives to your hardware device. In addition, you can calculate the latency to the first command and the latency to the last. You can also visualize Hardware commands. This enables you to check whether your Trial Control settings do what you expect them to do. For example, visualize the Hardware command Drop pellet for your pellet dispenser and plot it in the integrated visualization together with the video to check how often the command was given and when. Hardware commands appear as Point events in your plot, that is, as events with no duration.

Hardware Continuous Variable

After EthoVision XT has started tracking, connected hardware devices start sending signals to the EthoVision computer. You can analyze these signals by adding Hardware continuous variables to your analysis profile. You can calculate and visualize, for instance, the number of pellets dropped by your pellet dispenser or the duration of licks at the lickometer.

How to Add a Hardware Continuous Variable to an Analysis Profile

1. In the Experiment Explorer, right-click Analysis Profiles and select New, or click an existing profile.
2. Click the Add button next to Hardware continuous. The Hardware continuous variable window opens.
3. From the Device type list, select the hardware device you want to calculate statistics for. For example, if you want to analyze how many pellets your pellet dispenser dropped, select Pellet Dispenser (PTPD-001x).
4. In the Device list, the name of the hardware device will appear as you defined it when you assigned the device to the arena.
5. From the Signal list, select which signal you want to analyze. For instance, for the pellet dispenser you can select Number of drops.
6. Click the Trial Statistics tab to choose the statistics for the dependent variable. If you want summarized statistics over all trials, or the groups of trials defined in your Data Profile, click the Group Statistics tab and select additional statistics. Next, click Add. For details, see Calculate Statistics in the EthoVision XT Help.

Application: Hardware Continuous Variable

By selecting Hardware continuous variable as Dependent Variable, you can calculate, for instance, how many pellets your pellet dispenser dropped or how long your mouse has been drinking from its water bottle. You can also calculate the frequency with which drinking from the bottle took place. However, many of these drinking occurrences together often form a single drinking bout. Analyzing such bouts is not possible in the current version of EthoVision XT. This means that to calculate how often such bouts occurred, you have to export the data to a Hardware log and analyze this in an external program like Excel.

Source: EthoVision XT 18 - THC - Trial and Hardware Control, Noldus Information Technology