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Sequential Pinch Force Task

A presentation software for the Sequence Pinch Force Task. The experiment consists of a reference bar whose height varies based on a configured sequence. The participant needs to match the height of the reference bar using a second bar that is driven by the applied pinch force on a force plate. The pinch force data is generated by a force plate connected via a serial COM port (over USB).

Task design

This task is modeled on previous work, including the following (most relevant) references:

Integration (triggering)

  • The session can be triggered to start by keypress values defined in the configuration file
  • Each trial start/stop can also be synchronized with external devices through serial port triggering (or emulated serial port)
    • a single trigger message is sent to the external device (e.g, arduino) for both start and stop: byte[] TRIGGER_MESSAGE = {'1','\n'}
    • the generated output file will contain a triggersOut field with times and values indicating start ('0') and stop ('1')

Build

The application is built with Maven 3

You can use your system's version of Maven or you can use the included Maven wrapper if you don't have Maven installed

To use the wrapper, run the following command from the root of the repo

./mvnw clean package

This will generate a runnable jar in the target folder

Run

This application uses Java 17. Make sure it is installed before running the application.

  • if you are running this on a linux system, you will require explicit access to the incoming data from ports {/dev/ttyACM0; /dev/ttyACM1} and to send triggers out from the program via the serial port if desired {/dev/ttyACM2}. This can be granted by the system administrator providing the user with access to the dialout group with sudo usermod -a -G dialout theUserNameHere
  • to ensure that you are recording from the correct devices always plug the devices in to the USB ports in the same order (left, right) and you must attach the trigger output device last
    • this allows you to ensure that you are always aware of which device is which

Installing Java17 (linux)

Java 11 may still be the default for Ubuntu-based OSs, so you must install it explicitly

sudo apt install openjdk-17-jre  openjdk-17-jdk

Check that the proper installation is active by running java --version

Once a JDK or JRE is installed, run

java -jar <jarFile>

For example, if running a locally built version

java -jar target/spft-1.5-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar

This will start a window where you can load a configuration file for a session. There is a list of runtime flags that let you customize some aspects of the application

Configuration file

A configuration file is a YAML file that sets all the parameters for a single session.

The configuration file contains the details about the session, a list of blocks and a list of trials. Each block has a configuration for its parameters and a list of trials that reference a particular trial configuration from the top-level list of trials

For a sample configuration, check this file

Parameters

sessionName: A user-friendly name for the session. Only visible by the experimenter
outputSuffix: Part of the output file's name
interBlockInterval: A value in milliseconds to wait between consecutive blocks. There's no IBI before the first block or after the last one
forceProportionRange: What proportion of the Maximum Voluntary Contraction (MVC) to limit the force range to
triggers: [Optional] A list or single key that needs to be pressed to start the session after the experimenter has manually started it. This is useful when there's an external devices that needs to synchronize execution, such as an MRI scanner. If the parameter is missing, the session will start as soon as the experimenter clicks on start
colours: [Optional] A hex colour code (without '#') to use for the leftReference, leftForce, rightReference or rightForce bars

  colours: # optional
    leftReference: 0000FF #blue
    leftForce: FEFE00 #yellow

blocks: The list of blocks in the sessions
blocks.name: A friendly name of a particular block. Seen only by the experimenter
blocks.instructions: A string giving the instructions to the participant of the block that is about to start
blocks.instructionsDuration: The duration in milliseconds that the instructions will be on screen
blocks.feedback: A string giving feedback to the participant at the end of the block
blocks.feedbackDuration: The duration in milliseconds that the feedback will be on screen
blocks.interTrialInterval: The duration in milliseconds of the delay between trials
blocks.trials: A list of references to the sequences that define each trial. The referenced sequence has to exist in the top-level pool of sequences
sequences: A pool of sequences that can be referenced in blocks' trials. Each sequence has the values for the reference bar and a frequency in milliseconds that defines the speed of the sequence. Each value of the sequence is displayed for this length of time.

  • a sequence must be made up of at least two timepoints (i.e., two height values) to ensure correct timing of feedback at the end of the block

Runtime flags

Runtime flags are JVM System Properties that control some behaviour of the application To pass a system property, use the -Dproperty=value syntax before the jar name that's standard in java applications. For example, to enable debug mode: java -jar -Ddebug=true target/spft-1.3-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar

debug: Enables extra verbose logging and panel coloured backgrounds to see where each panel ends
spft.forceData.smoothWindowSize: The number of samples in the averaging window to calculate the height of the force bar. Default: 1
spft.ui.font.size: Font size for the instructions and feedback text. Default: calculated relative to screen's vertical resolution spft.ui.bars.minHeight: Minimum height of the bars, in pixels. Default: 20
spft.ui.bars.maxHeight: Maximum height of the bars, in pixels. Default: calculated relative to screen's vertical resolution
spft.ui.bars.width: Bars width in pixels. Default: calculated relative to screen's horizontal resolution
spft.ui.bars.separation: Separation between the reference and the force bar of a single hand. Default: calculated relative to screen's horizontal resolution
spft.ui.bars.referenceOutside: Boolean flag to indicate if the reference bar of each hand should be on the inside or outside. Default: false, the reference bars are inside

Experiment Structure

The highest level of a run is a session. Each session is specified by its own config file and generates a single output file.
A session is composed of blocks. Each block is separated from the next block by an inter-block interval. A block starts with instructions of what the participant is supposed to do in that particular block and ends with feedback for that block.
A block is itself subdivided into trials. Each trial is separated from the next trial by an inter-trial interval. A trial is a sequence of values that the participant is supposed to match. If a trial references a sequence with valuesLeft and valuesRight, the trial is considered a bi-manual trial, this will use 4 bars (left, right reference & left right force)

Output

The output of a session is a YAML file that is self-contained. This means that to process it, you don't need to use the original configuration file. All the configuration parameters needed for processing should be included in the output

Fields

sessionName: The name of the session as specified in the configuration file
startTime: The date and wall time in UTC when the session started. This is the time when the experimenter clicked start, not when the trigger was received
configurationFile: The full path of the configuration file used
configurationChecksum: The MD5 checksum of the configuration file. This is useful in case the configuration file is modified across runs
participantId: An ID of the participant provided by the experimenter when starting the session
maximum*VoluntaryContraction: A value entered by the experimenter when starting the session based on the results of the first run of the experiment
blocks: A list of every block and its trials
blocks.startTimestamp: The start of the block using a CPU clock. Its value is meaningless in absolute terms, it is only relative to the other times in the session
blocks.trials: A list of the presentation values and their actual timestamps using a CPU clock blocks.trials.*.times: Actual timestamps of presentation values using a CPU clock blocks.trials.*.values: Presentation values corresponding to reference bar height, predetermined according to input yml file blocks.endTimestamp: The end of the block using a CPU clock
devices: A list of hardware force devices with each element containing the full stream of data starting when one of the triggers is received devices.*.times: Timestamps of recorded values read from the input device using a CPU clock devices.*.values: Recorded values corresponding to participants pinch force collected by the device triggers: A list of triggers received throughout the session triggers.times: CPU time trigger was received by computer triggers.values: Value received to trigger the start of the first block triggersOut: If present, indicates serial out hardware device and port name for triggers sent to arduino. Contains the times and values for each trigger

Implementation notes

Force bar height

The height of the force bar controlled by the device is calculated in the method com.github.neuralabc.spft.ui.BarsPanel.changeForceHeight found here. It is a function of the raw value from the device, the MVC for that hand, the max and min force range proportion and the min and max height in pixels of the bar.

It is probably simpler to look at the code but a (less precise) description in natural language would be that the height of the bar is the MVC-normalized force value (raw/mvc) linearly projected to a normalized range between the min and max force range

  • ((deviceForceValue / MVC) - forceRangeMin)/(forceRangeMax-forceRangeMin)
  • where:
    • MVC = maximumLeftVoluntaryContraction in output yml
    • deviceForceValue = values under devices in output yml
  • deviceForceValue can be converted to actual force with the following:
    • for these sensors it is ~ 90.8. To determine it, we would need another calibrated sensor
    • values measure a range of 0-50000g, such that if you press with 9.81N it will return the value 1000
    • sensors are calibrated on plug-in to correct whatever random offset there is to 0 -> there must be no pressure on the sensor when it is plugged in!