Sending triggers from PsychoPy to NeuLog GSR

Hi

I am stuck with a problem related with sending triggers through serial port and I would be truly grateful if anyone could give any help / advice:

OS : Win 11

PsychoPy version : v2022.2.5

What are you trying to achieve?:
I have a very simple task, where I will present images for a participant. It would be necessary to measure their electrodermal activity during this task. To this end, I am using a Neulog NUL -217 GSR logger sensor.
.The only point I am struggling with the task in Psycho Py is that I need to send a trigger at the moment of the image is presented to Neulog Software that records the GSR response.
I have refered the Sending triggers via a Serial Port — PsychoPy v2023.2.0 and followed the same procedure and receive syntax errors.
Alert 4210:JavaScript Syntax Error in ‘Begin JS Experiment’ tab. See ‘Line 1: Unexpected token’ in the ‘Begin JS Experiment’ tab. I did all required changes .(port renaming)

What did you try to make it work?:
I checked for my python version and updated. Installed the library. checked the syntax errors too.

Does anyone developed something like this and could give a hint on how to set up these triggers?

Thanks so much!!!

BR,
Iranthi

Hello,

How did you try to run the experiment? You get a JavaScript error, but you check the Python libraries? I assume you want to run the experiment offline, am I right? If so, why do you JavaScript?

Best wishes Jens

yes i want to run it offline. i wants to trime track when a space bar pressed (when stimuli were viewed via psycopy) and send a trigger or sync with Neu Log sensor to trace the exact time that view the image

Hello

  1. do you mind showing us the relevant part of your experiment that throws the error?
  2. What did you do to achieve your goal? So, what did you do to get a keypress as reaction to showing an image?
  3. What did you do to send a trigger?

Best wishes Jens

Have you looked at Todd’s Neulog Python code?

Years ago I had getting PsychoPy to talk to Neulog GSR sensors on my to-do list (because we were having so much trouble with the standard software on our lab laptops). However, we eventually stopped running the practical and then COVID happened and running PsychoPy online became more important.

Here’s some information from @Makataui from 2016.

We bought a few Edulab test units (also masquerading under the name NeuLog?). One of them was the GSR.

We stayed away from the software, instead logging with Python (mostly) and one attempt at logging and manipulating with MATLAB.

Using the relatively simple API - which is quite restrictive but easy to use - (we actually used the NeuLog API but I don’t know if there’s any difference here?) and Python’s urllib2 on PsychoPy we made a few builder components that we are considering submitting to PsychoPy’s main repo (once they’re better tested and I’ve made the code a bit cleaner – I wrote it in a rush) but that we have locally available here on PsychoPy installations if people are using them.

We use event marking obviously within the experimental software itself this way to make sure it not only lined up with stimuli but that it was in one nice neat package – we still ran the wifi module alongside to allow people to monitor remotely/use the software if they wanted but we encouraged logging in PsychoPy as much as possible. Once we had a CSV output, you could then do any analysis or graphing you wanted from the values.

Using the NeuLog software (rather than the EduLab one), we ran the software on both Windows and Mac PCs without issue but these weren’t used in testing conditions – just an as is.

Though both softwares, completely unrelated to EduLab, were a pain to get going on our centralised and virtualised IT network… but that’s a different fight!

NeuLog software and API available at: Software and Application | NeuLog Sensors

We also linked it up as a trial to Qualtrics to record during a question, (using a bit of jquery and the prototype.js framework that Qualtrics uses and using a simple window.open() ) and got an experiment to run and save in the background (but this is clunky and was never gone beyond the ‘oh look, we can get it to run for fun’ stage and not sure of the use for it as the person using it would have to be sat at a computer with the API installed, running, set to the correct ports… you may as well use PsychoPy or MATLAB at that stage!).

I should add – for fun as well since we got a Hand Dynanometer, for open days, using the BART demo on PsychoPy, we make live values come from the sensor by just sending repeated calls to it every frame and making it print that value to the screen – we tell participants it’s a task to test their strength while they play the BART and we get them to repeatedly grip – but I’ve toyed around with making a separate module where you have a bar with distinct squares rather than like an LED meter ‘style’ just reading the values to the screen (but that’s completely not a necessary thing – just for fun).

With the API you can log in the background but if anyone found a use for it, you could also show the value to participants during a particular experiment (as well as logging it) of any of the sensors on that API list. So far, we haven’t found any use for it other than a fun task to demo the sensors live (we do a variant with the GSR and the Hand Dynanometer while they do the BART as well).

And you can, because you just need to make URL calls to it on the local machine, control it remotely – albeit with a relatively restrictive environment – if needed by using a bit of Javascript on a page the participant visit.

We’re working on a separate js library/web builder based on a new localised time method and stacking requests that I was digging into - that I will probably incorporate this function into with the ability to set type of sensor, logging interval, etc. But that’s a pipe dream currently and is currently sat on a LEMP server on the internal network with a very limited GUI and a sparse library – especially with our workload – but it is entirely possible. Again, same as with Qualtrics, I see very little use in it but the possibility is definitely there.

Since he was at Lincoln at the time, this may have formed the basis of @TParsons ’ code at GitHub - LincolnPsychTech/Edulog: Scripts and functions for interfacing with the eduloggers through the Neulog API

I use neulog gsr sensor and psycopy in my experiment. i want to time lock when an image expose to the viewer and sinc that time in nuelog data, image will be filp as the viewer enter space bar. at that time i want to lock the time and set it zero and sinc to nuelog data. I am greatful if anyone can support me to solve the issue.
Thanks
BR
Iranthi