Knowledge Base

Subjects

What Are Subjects?

When you are observing more than one individual at a time, you normally not only want to record what somebody is doing, but also who that somebody is. These individuals are referred to as subjects. Subjects are usually the roles of the individuals, like child and mother, a doctor and a patient, or alpha male and subdominant male.

Subjects can be individual animals or humans, but also, for instance, hands (on a keyboard), muscles in the face, or shoals of fish. It is not compulsory to specify subjects. If you observe only one person or animal in each observation, do not define subjects.

Examples of Subjects

• Mother-child interaction – Mother and Child.
• Social interaction in a short-term study of a group of animals – Alpha Male, Sub-dominant Male, Female.
• Imitation in twins – Twin A, Twin B, Parent.
• School environment – Teacher, Pupil 1, Pupil 2.
• Test participant, where one person is observed in each test session – No subject needed.

Notes

• If you want to specify the name or other properties of each subject, create Independent Variables with scope Subject and enter the properties as values.
• If you observe only one subject in each observation, do not define subjects. Specify the actual names or identities of the subjects as Independent Variables.

Define Subjects

Define the roles in your study.

Prerequisites

• Your Coding Scheme is open. If not, choose Setup > Open Coding Scheme.
• The Subjects pane is visible. If not, choose View Settings > Subjects.
• Your study includes more than one person or animal in each observation.

Procedure

1. Click the Add Subject button.
2. Enter the subject name.

Notes

• A Subject group is created for each Observation method you have selected. The Subjects pane displays a subject group for continuous sampling and instantaneous sampling. By default, the continuous sampling subject group contains no subject, whereas the instantaneous sampling subject group contains one subject.
• The instantaneous sampling group also initially contains an error: "Missing Combinations." When you first open the coding scheme window, no behavior groups have yet been defined. However, a subject should be linked to a behavior group to score for that subject.

Define Subject Properties

Specify details for the subject by opening the Subject Properties pane. Click the subject name and then the Properties button at the bottom of the Subjects pane. Enter the following details:

• Description – Optionally add a description to your subject in the Description field (maximum 1024 ASCII characters). This is particularly useful if two or more people are using the same coding scheme and need to know who the various subjects are.
• Start Code – The code to score the subject. With the option Generate Keycodes Automatically, the key code is automatically assigned to the subject. Optionally, change it.
• Sound – Optionally browse to a sound (*.wav file) you want to hear when you score that subject. To play the sounds, you must select the Use Coding Scheme Sounds (for elements only) check box in the Sound Feedback tab of the Project Settings.
• Observation Method – Shows which subject group (Continuous Sampling or Instantaneous Sampling) a subject is assigned to. If you use both continuous and instantaneous sampling, you can change the group a subject is assigned to. The instantaneous subject group must contain at least one subject.
• Add Comment – To enter a comment every time you score that subject.
• Inactive – To make the subject inactive when you do not want to use it anymore.
• Subject-Behavior Combinations – To specify which behavior to score for which subject. Examples include:
  • Mother-child interaction study – You are observing a mother and her two-year-old child and decide to score Play behavior of the child only. You define a Play behavior group and assign it to the subject Child, not Mother.
  • Primate study – You are observing a group of primates and decide to follow two of them as focal subjects (a mother and her baby). You have defined four behavior groups: Individual Behavior, Social Behavior, Location, and Distance to Mother. For the focal subject Baby, you record behaviors of all four groups. For the subject Mother, you only record Individual Behavior and Social Behavior, resulting in a total of 6 combinations.

Notes

• Many properties can be shown as columns in the Subjects pane but are hidden by default. To show these columns, right-click one of the headers and select Show All Columns. To hide a column, right-click that column's header and select Hide Column. To choose a subset of columns, right-click a header, select Show Column, and make your selection.
• If you delete a Subject-Behavior Combination and you have already scored data for that combination, the observation will contain errors. Restore the combination, remove the events with errors, or re-score them using valid combinations.