An Oddball task is a task in which stimuli are presented in a continuous stream and participants must detect the presence of an oddball stimulus. The oddball is a stimulus that occurs infrequently relative to all other stimuli, and has distinct characteristics (e.g., a different tone among auditory stimuli).
This folder contains 3 types of Oddball experiment.
Goal: Test both the effects of the tonic (constant strength: nondominant hand) and phasic (motor response: dominant hand) levels on the pupil size.
Task:
The non dominant hand squeezes the dynamometor and hold the grip with different strength intensity throughout the trials. The required strength is determined by a vertical line that changes position every 10 trials, thus changing the required strength as well. The subject has to bring a dot that appears on an horizontal line to the vertical line and hold the grip. The different level of strength are: no strength (washout period of 10 trials every 10 trials), 5%,10%,15%,20%,25% and 30% of the maximal strength of the subject.
The dominant hand squeezes (shortly) the dynamometer when the oddball tone comes up. As the subject squeezes the dynamometer, a cercle grows, it has to fit/reach the outer circle that is tuned to 40% of the subject maximal strength. That helps reducing the variability of the the motor responses and control better the motor strength of the subject.
Same task as the above but works with EEG. Specific steps are indicated in the readmeEEG file.
Simplier oddball task for the FTD patients. Subjects squeeze with both hands (when they can) when hearing either the oddball tone or the standard tone (depending on the block). The task contains novels sounds as well.
TestStrength(): measures maximal strength of subjects.
CalibTones and CalibFiles mat files: calibrate each sound to reach 8 db.