A consumer-grade LCD monitor for precise visual stimulation

Zhang, Gongliang; Li, Ai-Su; Miao, Chengguo; He, Xun; Zhang, M.; Zhang, Yang

doi:10.3758/s13428-018-1018-7

Cited by 45 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 17 publications

(23 reference statements)

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“…The replication crisis in cognitive neuroscience inspired us to investigate all sources of delay and noise in our experiments so that our efforts might be better replicated (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18). If 64% of all psychological science is not reproducible, what percent of this 64% is due to errant stimulus timing or unshielded systems?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stimulus Onset Hub: An open-source, low latency, and opto-isolated trigger box for neuroscientific research replicability and beyond

Davis

Martin²,

Thorpe³

2019

Preprint

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There is currently a replication crisis in many fields of neuroscience and psychology, with some estimates claiming up to 64% of research in psychological science is not reproducible. Three common culprits which have been suspected to cause the failure to replicate such studies are small sample sizes, "hypothesizing after the results are known," and "p-hacking." Here, we introduce accurate stimulus timing as an additional possibility. Accurate stimulus onset timing is critical to almost all psychophysical research. Auditory, visual, or manual response time stimulus onsets are typically sent through wires to various machines that record data such as: eye gaze positions, electroencephalography, stereo electroencephalography, and electrocorticography. These stimulus onsets are collated and analyzed according to experimental condition. If there is variability in the temporal accuracy of the delivery of these onsets to external systems, the quality of the resulting data and scientific analyses will degrade. Here, we describe an approximately $200 Arduino based system and associated open-source codebase which achieved a 5.34 microsecond delay from the inputs to the outputs while electrically opto-isolating the connected external systems. Using an oscilloscope, the device is configurable for different environmental conditions particular to each laboratory (e.g. light sensor type, screen type, speaker type, stimulus type, temperature, etc). This low-cost open-source project delivered electrically isolated stimulus onset Transistor-Transistor Logic triggers with a median precision of 5.34 microseconds and was successfully tested with 7 different external systems that record eye and neurological data. EEG | SEEG | ECoG | fMRI | TTL | Opto-isolation | Stimulus Tracking | Psychophysics | DIY | Open-source | Arduino | MultimodalC. Davis and J. Martin were with the

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stimulus Onset Hub: An open-source, low latency, and opto-isolated trigger box for neuroscientific research replicability and beyond

Davis

Martin²,

Thorpe³

2019

Preprint

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“…Stimuli were displayed on a 48.9°by 27.5°Asus RoG Swift PG278Q, an LCD twisted nematic monitor with a spatial resolution of 52 pixels per degree, and a temporal resolution of 100 Hz (AsusTek Computer Inc.). The Ultra Low Motion Blur backlight strobing option of the monitor was enabled (maximum pulse width) for higher temporal precision (65). Eye position of the left eye was recorded with an Eyelink 1000 at 1,000 Hz (Sr Research Ltd.).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time course of spatiotopic updating across saccades

Fabius

Fracasso

Nijboer

et al. 2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Humans move their eyes several times per second, yet we perceive the outside world as continuous despite the sudden disruptions created by each eye movement. To date, the mechanism that the brain employs to achieve visual continuity across eye movements remains unclear. While it has been proposed that the oculomotor system quickly updates and informs the visual system about the upcoming eye movement, behavioral studies investigating the time course of this updating suggest the involvement of a slow mechanism, estimated to take more than 500 ms to operate effectively. This is a surprisingly slow estimate, because both the visual system and the oculomotor system process information faster. If spatiotopic updating is indeed this slow, it cannot contribute to perceptual continuity, because it is outside the temporal regime of typical oculomotor behavior. Here, we argue that the behavioral paradigms that have been used previously are suboptimal to measure the speed of spatiotopic updating. In this study, we used a fast gaze-contingent paradigm, using high phi as a continuous stimulus across eye movements. We observed fast spatiotopic updating within 150 ms after stimulus onset. The results suggest the involvement of a fast updating mechanism that predictively influences visual perception after an eye movement. The temporal characteristics of this mechanism are compatible with the rate at which saccadic eye movements are typically observed in natural viewing.

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“…A further critical point is that early-generation LCDs typically had slow response times 1,6,8 , making them unsuitable for short stimulus presentations. Newer-generation LCDs, however, are equipped with technologies (i.e., dynamic capacitance compensation [DCC], which is often also termed "overdrive") that compensate for this problem by speeding up gray-to-gray response times 6,9 . In simplified terms, this means that the monitor is equipped with an internal buffer that stores the frame currently requested by the computer's graphic card while still displaying the previously-requested frame.…”

Section: Liquid Crystal Display Monitors (Lcds) Lcd Monitors Work DImentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, researchers are advised to carefully evaluate whether a specific monitor can be used for millisecond-precise presentations or not. In principle, when taking into account brightness over time, and with DCC enabled for fast responses and appropriate luminance adjustments, CRT and LCD monitors should be able to yield comparable results 9 .…”

Section: Liquid Crystal Display Monitors (Lcds) Lcd Monitors Work DImentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, obtaining measurements might be difficult in practice due to the extensive knowledge and resources required. Moreover, while several articles have examined the technical properties of LCD monitors [1][2][3]5,6,9 , only few articles have investigated perceptual characteristics of CRT versus LCD monitors and how they relate to human performance 7,10,11 . Thus, even if researchers take technical differences into account, it remains unclear whether CRT and LCD monitors yield comparable perceptual effects, especially when it comes to short and millisecond-precise stimulus presentations (see, e.g 7 , for differences concerning display persistence).…”

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confidence: 99%

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How Monitor Characteristics Affect Human Perception in Visual Computer Experiments: CRT vs. LCD Monitors in Millisecond Precise Timing Research

Rohr

Wagner

2020

Sci Rep

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Liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors are nowadays standard in computerized visual presentation. However, when millisecond precise presentation is concerned, they have often yielded imprecise and unreliable presentation times, with substantial variation across specific models, making it difficult to know whether they can be used for precise vision experiments or not. The present paper intends to act as hands-on guide to set up an experiment requiring millisecond precise visual presentation with LCD monitors. It summarizes important characteristics relating to precise visual stimulus presentation, enabling researchers to transfer parameters reported for cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors to LCD monitors. More importantly, we provide empirical evidence from a preregistered study showing the suitability of LCD monitors for millisecond precise timing research. Using sequential testing, we conducted a masked number priming experiment using CRT and LCD monitors. Both monitor types yielded comparable results as indicated by Bayes factor favoring the null hypothesis of no difference between display types. More specifically, we found masked number priming under conditions of zero awareness with both types of monitor. Thus, the present study highlights the importance of hardware settings for empirical psychological research; inadequate settings might lead to more "noise" in results thereby concealing potentially existing effects.

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A consumer-grade LCD monitor for precise visual stimulation

Cited by 45 publications

References 17 publications

Stimulus Onset Hub: An open-source, low latency, and opto-isolated trigger box for neuroscientific research replicability and beyond

Stimulus Onset Hub: An open-source, low latency, and opto-isolated trigger box for neuroscientific research replicability and beyond

Time course of spatiotopic updating across saccades

How Monitor Characteristics Affect Human Perception in Visual Computer Experiments: CRT vs. LCD Monitors in Millisecond Precise Timing Research

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