TSCOPE

Platform: Extremely simple-to-use tachistoscope program, compatible with any Mac (including PowerMac). User can customize either sets of trials or individual trials.
Interface: Easy-to-use graphic interface.
Stimulus Presentation: Within each trial, user can specify whether a fixation point is to be displayed, the timing of the first stimulus field, the timing of a mask, and then the timing of a second stimulus field (e.g., for presenting probe items, or follow-up stimuli). Individual stimuli are drawn, trial by trial, from a text file; this file can also specify the stimulus duration for each individual trial, and the type of mask for that trial..
Output: Data are saved in text files, one file per subject. The experimenter specifies what information gets saved in the output text field (e.g., specific key-presses, RT, or both).
Reference: An earlier version was described in: Doenias, J., Langland, S. and Reisberg, D. (1992). A versatile, user-friendly tachistoscope for the Macintosh. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, Computers, 24, 434-438.
Cost: $20.
Distributor: Daniel Reisberg, email: reisberg@reed.edu
Support: Limited support.
Intended Users/Comments: Control of design: TScope provides excellent control over the sequence of trials. The overall sequence can be divided into trial blocks, and then, within each block, the user can specify a set sequence, or can randomize the trials, or can specify a constrained randomization. Data can then be stored either in the sequence of actual trial presentation, or in a sequence corresponding to the order of stimuli in the stimulus file.
Limits: TScope is designed to be easily learned and easily used, and is capable of running a wide range of procedures (including procedures that require careful timing, but not brief presentations -- such as list-learning studies). However, TScope is also limited to presenting text files, in a single font and color.

VIDEOTOOLBOX

Platform: Runs well on the PowerMac.
Interface: C language.
Stimulus Presentation: The provided routines handle the dirty work of taking an array of numbers that describe a stimulus and accurately rendering it as an image or movie. The VideoToolbox routines take care ofall the intricasies of achieving accurate luminance and timing (including sound) on a Mac. It's up to the user to create the high-level program that generates the array of numbers. The QUEST C package, for threshold estimation, is provided as well.
Output: None to speak of. The routines present stimuli and collect responses. The user is expected to provide the high level program to drive them.
Reference: Pelli, D.G. (1997) The VideoToolbox software for visual psychophysics: Transforming numbers into movies. Spatial Vision 10: 437-442 (HTML)
Cost: Free.
Distributor: http://vision.nyu.edu/VideoToolbox/
Support: none.
Intended Users/Comments: A flexible and powerful collection of 200 C subroutines for users who are comfortable with programming and know their hardware. This collection is the basis for other available experimental software packages, such as Psychophysics Toolbox (for MATLAB), Psychophysica (for Mathematica), and RSVP.

Vision Egg

Platform: Platform independent.
Interface between Python and openGL
Stimulus Presentation: In addition to methods for automatic generation of traditional visual stimuli such as sinusoidal gratings and random dot patterns, it has a number of functions for moving numeric data, images, movies, text, and 3D objects to and from your video card in realtime and allowing use of some of its features like perspective distortion. Therefore, it is also useful for anyone wishing to make use of the features of today's graphics cards.
Cost: Free.
Distributor: http://www.visionegg.org/
Intended Users/Comments: Psychophysicists/Experimental psychologists.


VPixx

Platform: PowerMac
Interface: Graphical Interface, Drag-and-Drop, Scripting, High-Level Programming. Also has an interactive receptive-field mapping mode.
Stimulus Presentation: Frame-synchronized rectangle, oval, arc, text, and imported PICT shapes containing static or dynamic gratings, windmills, concentric circles, looming circles, uniform fields, gaussian blobs, checkerboards, binary/uniform/gaussian noise, drifting/rotating/looming dots, and custom patterns defined by general "C" expressions or imported from PICT files. Multiple patterns can be combined additively or multiplicitively generating plaids, gabors, second-order stimuli etc. Stimulus chromaticities can be specified in RGB, LMS (cone contrast), or CIE XYZ, Lxy, Lu'v', L*u*v* and L*a*b*. Can also present most sound files.
Output: Method-of-constant-stimuli subject events, reaction-times and event durations. Adaptive staircase thresholds. All data stored to MicroSoft Excel files for easy graphing or further analysis. Also can export dynamic stimuli as QuickTime movies for teaching or web publishing.
Cost: $4000 for three testing stations, includes 1 day of custom programming
Distributor: http://www.vpixx.com
Support: Unlimited free email and phone support for licensed researchers and their students
Intended Users/Comments: Researchers and teachers in the fields of psychophysics, electrophysiology, cognition, and fMRI. Free demo, VPixx User Guide, and sample stimuli available at http://www.vpixx.com. Custom programming and hardware design/interfacing services available.

VSG Software Library for the Visual Stimulus Generator

Platform: Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT 4 Requires: VSG2/5*, VSG2/4, VSG2/3 or VSG2/2 visual stimulus generator Software \
Interface: multi-layer software system to suit all levels of programming ability. Includes drag&drop visual components for Borland Delphi and C++Builder, plus high-level APIs for Borland Delphi and C++Builder, Microsoft Visual C++ and Visual Basic, and MathWorks MATLAB *VSG2/5
Hardware Interface: proprietary PCI graphics card, 15 bit output resolution per colour channel for ultra fine control of colour and contrast, dedicated on-board look-up table processor to guarantee timing under Windows, 8 & 24 bits per pixel gamma-corrected video modes for all types of visual stimuli, 150 MHz pixel rates and programmable frame rates to 500 Hz to drive all analogue raster-based display devices, 8 MB Video RAM (expandable to 32 MB) for storing images, 8 MB DRAM for storing programs, look-up tables and off-screen images, hardware reaction timing, integrated analogue and digital I/O interface for synchronisation and communication with external systems Stimulus Presentation: virtually any 2D visual stimulus, including solid shapes, gratings, Gabors, dots and real images, plus extra support for stereoscopic and binocular presentations
Output: The VSG Software Library provides a suite of software tools to generate visual stimuli and collect psychophysical or evoked responses using a Visual Stimulus Generator. The end-user must write a PC program using one of the supported programming languages to implement the experiment and analyse the data
Cost: VSG systems are available from US$7500 (includes VSG2/5, VSG Software Library v6, full after-sale technical support & warranty package)
Distributor: Cambridge Research Systems Ltd., see: http://www.crsltd.com
Support: Unlimited free technical and programming support by email, 'phone or fax. Free software updates from http://www.crsltd.com
Intended Users/Comments: Cambridge Research Systems' Visual Stimulus Generators are designed specifically for vision science applications and have special hardware features for psychophysics and electrophysiology"



RELATED REVIEWS AND PAGES



EEG ToolboxTools for advanced EEG data analysis under Matlab using ICA and time/frequency methods, http://sccn.ucsd.edu/eeglab/

Software for Psychophysics: An Overview http://www.visionscience.com/documents/strasburger.html

Tips for Psychophysics: Tips, by Denis Pelli and David Brainard, is a web site that has lots of practical advice on using computers to do visual psychophysics. Use the search command.



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I appreciate the suggestions and comments from the developers and users of these products, from the members of CVnet, and from Denis Pelli, NYU (Videotoolbox author), who hosts this page on  http://vision.nyu.edu/Tips/.

CONTACTING THE AUTHOR

Email: Faith Florer, fflorer@barnard.edu

Faith's home page

web counter hits since 4/10/96:

好像还有一个Inquisit没有介绍么？
最好是有注册码的

谢谢楼主的介绍，没想到会有这么多软件，很多还是免费的。

学习了！！！！

太感谢楼主了，介绍了这么多有用的软件！

怎么都是英文的呀,中文的有多好!