CHANGELOG.md

Change Log of ARCADE

[2.6.0] - 2022-04-07

NEW

• Added sleep.* and timeBEPeriod.* to arcade\Core. sleep( ) is a wrapper for Windows system call Sleep( ). timeBEPeriod enables/disables higher- precision multi-media timers via the timeBeginPeriod( ) and timeEndPeriod( ) system call.
• Added priority.* for managing the priority class of ARCADE processes. apriority.m simplifies the interface in ARCADE core functions. Essential ARCADE processes flipped in and out of high-priority state during the critical period of a running trial.
• User can add empty file called EyeServer_SetSampleMode.arcade to same folder as task file in order to optionally enable EyeServer's sample mode.
• StimServer v1.4.2.3: The deferred mode (groupStimuli) can now be canceled by using new cancel command or the StimServerEndDeferredMode event.
• EyeLinkServer v1.2.3.0: Support to receive samples for speed up, support for EndDeferredMode events
• The new add-on EditableVariableEditor contributed by Yufeng Zhang can be used to edit the editable variables in an existing configuration file (*_cfg.mat)
• NidaqServer 1.0.11.2 supports PCIe-6259

FIXED

• Issue 21 Done by finding Matlab timers that were created by processManager and stopping them. NOTE that now command line output from sub-processes is no longer accessible without reading the ASCII log files.
• Issue 6. Gammatron radius sets properly.
• A bug in the ARCADE startup caused the seeds of the random number generator to be identical on a given day leading to identical random sequences.

[2.5.7] - 2020-04-07

CHANGED

• StimServer v1.4.2.1: The window size of the StimServer stimulus screen in windowed mode is now 800x600 pixels. This prevents accidental switches to go unnoticed. Timing and performance in windowed mode are not reliable.

FIXED

• A bug process synchronization could prevent successful startup of ARCADE

[2.5.6] - 2020-03-02

NEW

• StimServer v1.4.2.0: support for Gamma correction
• measure_screen_gamma.m: new script for measuring the screen gamma value

CHANGED

• EyeLinkServer 1.2.0.0: In and Out events are now mutually exclusive

[2.5.5] - 2019-12-10

NEW

• StimServer v1.4.1.1: the Wedge stimulus can now be rotated via a LinearRange animation.
• NidaqServer v1.0.17.1: added support for PCIe-6351

[2.5.4] - 2019-11-08

NEW

• StimServer v1.4.1.0: - New Wedge stimulus - Photodiode position can be set in Windows registry
• EyelinkServer v1.1.7.0: new 'Message' command for message to be stored in EDF data file.

FIXED

• No timeout error in runControlScreen for connecting to the Core process.

[2.5.3] - 2019-06-14

FIXED

• StimServer v1.3.1.6: The LinearMotion animation could sometimes fully reach the very final position. The MovingBar stimulus was also affected.
• EyeLinkServer v1.1.6.2: If the Eyelink system was offline at EyeLinkServer startup, connecting to the Eyelink system via the GUI menu did not work. This was fixed.
• CalibrateEyelink: The startup of the StimServer and NidaqServer processes could sometimes fail. This is fixed by switching to the new launch_processes function for startup.

[2.5.2] - 2019-06-12

FIXED

• Using MATLAB 2014a with ARCADE 2.5.0-2.5.1, sessions were not terminated properly such that the eye data was not received from Eyelink and the behavioral data file was not closed. The error did not occur with MATLAB 2018b.

CHANGED

• EyeLinkServer v.1.1.6.1: speedup of start recording

[2.5.1] - 2019-06-07

NEW

• EyeLinkServer v1.1.6.0: When both eyes are tracked, the eye used for monitoring regions can be selected from the EyeLinkServer GUI. If only one eye is tracked, the selected eye is displayed.

FIXED

• EyeLinkServer v1.1.6.0: For binocular tracking, the current position was sometimes switching between the two eyes at runtime, causing small eye position jumps. This was fixed.

[2.5.0] - 2019-05-23

NEW

• ARCADE sends a [0 1 0] eventmarker sequence at beginning and and of a session. This can be used to synchronize different recording systems, e.g. Eyelink and TDT Sys3.

[2.5.0b3] - 2019-05-17

NEW

• NidaqServer v1.0.10.6: support for PCIe-6323
• For testing a task script, the simulate_trial function will create all editable variables from a _cfg.mat file in the MATLAB workspace as well as a valid TrialData struct.

FIXED

• In configuration MainScreen, the starting folder was not the ARCADE\Tasks folder.
• CalibrateEyelink: - The last position of the Eyelink calibration and the first position of a validation sequence was not rewarded. - The CalibrateEyelink sets the screen_pixel_coords variable of Eyelink to [-w/2 h/2-1 w/2-1 -h/2] with w and h being screen width and height, respectively. It is recommended to the same in the final.ini file on the Eyelink PC.

[2.5.0b2] - 2019-04-01

NEW

• EyeLinkServer v1.1.3.1: - Support for mixed-term biquadratatic transformations - Support vor overlapping targets

FIXED

• NidaqServer v1.0.10.4: error in support for PCIe-6321

[2.5.0b1] - 2019-03-13

NEW

• All modules of ARCADE (EyeServer, DaqServer, StimServer, ControlScreen) can now be enabled or disabled in the configuration (see ArcadeConfig). The function arcade/Core/launch_processes handles their startup based on the configuration and connects to the respective communication pipes.
• The configuration used for a particular session is now saved together with the behavioral data in the corresponding sessionLog folder.
• ARCADE can now be started with the path to a _cfg.mat file as an input argument skipping the MainScreen GUI for configuration. This makes it possible to start a task for a subject via a shortcut that calls start_arcade.bat
• Square wave grating with anti-aliased bands and circular mask
• StimServer v1.3.1.3: - anti-aliased Ellipse and Rectangle stimuli with support for outlines - support for swapping stimuli (drawing order)
• The new binary EyeLinkServer replaces the TestEyeServer and EyelinkEyeServer. This adds several new features: - A separate GUI for displaying the current eye position and the monitored screen locations - Speed: the EyeLinkServer can monitor many screen locations (~100) - Simulation mode: When no Eyelink system is connected, the GUI will act as a mouse simulation - Extandable: Due to a flexible pipe command interface additional features can be added in future releases (e.g. non-circular target windows)
• Support for MATLAB > 2014a.
• NidaqServer v.1.0.10.2: support for PCIe-6251 and PCIe-6321

CHANGED

• All user-facing functions and classes have extensive documentation of all relevant methods and properties.
• ControlScreen: - The GUI has been made more compact and resizable such that other windows can fit next to it. - The trial error legend now displays the correct labels that were set in MainScreen/configuration.
• ARCADE will now use the matlab.exe from the Windows PATH environmental variable. This is usually the one that was installed last. Tested versions are 2014a and 2018b Update 2
• Gammatron stimulus: - The drift direction is now configure via the sign of the temporal frequency - A temporal frequency of 0 will create a static Gammatron. - The phase offset can now be set in degree - The edge of the circular mask is now anti-aliased

DEPRECATED

• The following stimulus properties are deprecated and should not be used anymore: - Rectangle.color (use Rectangle.faceColor instead) - Rectangle.alpha (use Rectangle.faceAlpha instead) - Circle.color (use Circle.faceColor instead) - Circle.alpha (use Circle.faceAlpha instead) - Gammatron.direction (use sign of Gammatron.temporalFrequency instead)

REMOVED

• The SaccadeStart and SaccadeEnd events that were triggered by previous EyeServers are currently not supported.
• The EyeLinkServer currently does not support overlapping target windows.

[2.4.0] - 2018-06-15

NEW

• A petal-like shape stimulus can now be created using the Petal class
• The total reward issued during a session can now be retreived using the MATLAB function totalRewardtime
• Improved documentation for helper functions and stimuli

[2.3.0] - 2018-05-17

NEW

• MotionPicture stimuli trigger an event when playback has finished, with the name stored in the MotionPicture.endEventName property

FIXED

• Animations: De-assigning already finished/de-assigned animations was crashing StimServer
• MotionPicture stimuli were played at half the specified frame rate (MotionPicture.screenFramesPerVideoFrame)
• The specified MotionPicture frame rate was not stored in the MATLAB object.

[2.3.0b2] - 2018-05-04

CHANGED

• Default size of PixelShader-based stimuli is now 50x50 px. Shader size is automatically increased on demand in Grating and Gabor if radius exceeds current shader size
• Direction of maskRotation parameter of Gabor has been inverted. It used to be defined opposite of the Gabor.direction parameter

FIXED

• StimServer: changes to stimuli occuring after the end of a deferred mode (groupstimli('end')) but before the next frame were ignored. These are now also applied with the next frame.
• Obsolete shader code in Gabor and Grating has been removed

[2.3.0b1] - 2018-04-13

NEW

• Handmapper: an ARCADE add-on for manual receptive field mapping, which can be started via arcade/AddOns/Handmapper/RFhandmapper.bat
• bring_to_front: The drawing order of overlapping stimuli can now be adjusted by bringing individual stimuli to the frontmost layer using the bring_to_front method.
• Flicker animation: stimuli can be turned on and off periodically for speficied number of frames
• MotionPicture stimulus (alpha version): image sequences stored in a multi- frame TIFF file can be presented as movies. Use convert_video_for_StimServer to convert compressed movie files to an uncompressed TIFF.
• NidaqServer: logging option for debugging event-triggered reward
• Function for plotting a state flow diagram based on trialscript code
• State: set and get methods for duration and elapsedTime to determine State duration at runtime
• StateRuntimeVariable: a class for holding and retreiving data created at runtime of the session, e.g. reaction times. See help StateRuntimeVariable
• Improvements for CalibrateEyelink: reward is now coupled to advancing to the next calibration target, reward and stimulus visibility can be triggered via hotkeys

CHANGED

• Grating: the spatialFrequency property was renamed to spatialPeriod as it was actually specifying the period in px/cycle. spatialFrequency will still work but produce a warning

FIXED

• Editable variables where not removed from the configuration file when they were removed from the GUI
• Manually adding files to backup in main GUI deleted existing files

[2.2.0] - 2018-01-10

NEW

• EyelinkEyeServer: positions tracked via trackeye are not drawn on the Eyelink Host PC's screen.
• A stimulus position can now be coupled to a coordinate stored in shared memory using the animation ExternalPositionControl. This allows for example gaze-contingent stimulus presentation and manual receptive field mapping.
• The next state after the maximum number of repetitions of a State can now be defined using the nextStateAfterMaxRepetitions property.

CHANGED

• Updated the MovingBar class: Playing the bar animation is now triggered via MovingBar.play_animation() (see help MovingBar). Also, the animation of the bar is now configured by default to trigger the StimServerAnimationDone event once the bar has reached it's final position.

FIXED

• Setting the background color for the pause screen had no effect.
• Trialscripts that do not use the createTrial function, i.e. put States into the StateArc, crashed ARCADE.

[2.1.4] - 2018-01-08

FIXED

• StimServer 1.2.5.1: deleting PixelShader-based stimuli (gratings, gammatrons, gaussians, gabors)) without making them visible was crashing StimServer.exe in 1.2.4.0 and 1.2.5.0 (ARCADE 2.0.2-2.1.3)

[2.1.3] - 2017-12-18

FIXED

• Bugs due to renaming of NidaqServer to DaqServer
• Due to MATLAB black magic, states lasted ca. 10% longer than defined by the user. Timings of eventmarkers etc. should still have been correct. This is fixed with a workaround now. It will be fixed more elegantly in a future version of ARCADE.

[2.1.2] - 2017-11-15

NEW

• NidaqServer.exe: support for USB-6353

FIXED

• Bugs introduced due to renaming NidaqServer

[2.1.1] - 2017-11-02

FIXED

• NidaqServer.exe 1.0.8.0 sends sufficiently long and spaced eventmarkers for TDT's RZ2 (40 microseconds)

[2.1.0] - 2017-10-30

NEW

• Gabor stimulus
• NidaqServer can be configured to give out an event marker for manual rewards
• Added tutorial documentation for digital input/output

CHANGED

• Animations should now be played and stopped via the play_animation and stop_animation methods of a stimulus. Using the animation property is still supported but deprecated.
• Default terminal action of animations now 0, i.e., the stimulus persists after the animation
• getPreviousTrialdata now also returns user variables stored with storeUserVariables

FIXED

• Wrong path of pixel shader file of Gammatron stimulus

[2.0.1] - 2017-09-29

FIXED

• Fixed bugs related to CalibrateEyelink

[2.0.0] - 2017-09-08

NEW

• Linear range animation for image alpha values, StimServer 1.2.3.0
• Flash animation, StimServer 1.2.3.0

FIXED

• Wrong file name of trackdigitalinput function

CHANGED

• Restructured StimServer folder
• terminalAction property of Animation is now a binary string or a number

FIXED

• Bugs in Rectangle destructor
• Animations are unassigned in Stimulus destructor

[2.0.0a3] - 2017-07-14

CHANGED

• Eventmarkers are now controlled via NidaqServer.exe (port 0-1, strobe on port2/line7 (PCI-6221) or port2/line0 (PCI-6503)

FIXED

• Bugs in EyelinkEyeServer

[2.0.0a2] - 2017-07-10

NEW

• Helper function for tracking digital input
• Buttons and hotkeys in ControlScreen for setting an event to skip a trial.
• NidaqServer.exe 1.0.4.0 sets a RewardDone event when the reward sequence is over
• Example task for tracking a lever

[2.0.0a1]

NEW

• Buttons and hotkeys for reward in ControlScreen
• Support for arbitrary digital input devices, e.g. levers.
• NidaqServer for National Instruments Cards PCI(e)-6221 and PCI-6503
• EyeServer and DaqServer can be selected from the configuration GUI
• A trial can be terminated after a maximal number of iterations of a specific state (maxRepetitions property of State)

CHANGED

• Definition of State: states now wait for kernel32 events and select the next state according to which event was triggered or a timeout occurred. The syntax for State definition has completely changed (see new documentation).
• Reward is delivered via DaqServer
• Eye position is monitored in EyeServer processes and status signaled via events

REMOVED

• onRun functionality of States. If necessary this will be re-added later.

[1.0.0b3] - 2017-06-21

NEW

• Added Gaussian stimulus

CHANGED

• Enhanced condition/block selection functions: block selection is evaluated first and its result can be used in the condition selection function as 2nd argument.
• Updated Grating stimulus to use new shader implementation

FIXED

• Increased refresh rate of ControlScreen to enhance capturing of key presses

[1.0.0b2] - 2017-06-12

NEW

• Gammatron stimulus
• Pixel-shaded picture stimulus (not yet documented)
• PictureWithGaussianPatch stimulus (not yet documented)
• Behavioral data from a session is now stored in a unique folder without subfolders for experiment and session.
• Temporal frequencies of several stimuli are now expressed in cycles per s
• ARCADE version is printed in log files if Git is installed

FIXED

• Missing nanmax function in PLTReactionTime
• Month and day were swapped in date string

[1.0.0b1] - 2017-05-31

NEW

• 64-bit support: ARCADE runs on 64-bit MATLAB only (currently only 2014a). This allows for very long sessions (>9000 trials) and slightly improves performance.
• Rewritten stimulus classes: stimulus definition has been simplified and can now be easily tested outside a running session. This unfortunately means existing task scripts have to be adapted. See tutorial documentation for an overview.
• Documentation of all user-oriented functions and classes as well as tutorial documentation as been added.
• New EyeServers: ARCADE provides now interfaces for eye tracking via (1) National Instruments Cards (SGLNiEyeServer), (2) ethernet from Eyelink SR 1000/2000 (SGLEylinkEyeServer) and (3) a test eye signal for debugging (SGLTestEyeServer). Currently this has to be configured by manually changing line 44 of SGLEyeServerProc.m
• Laptop mode: when no national instruments card can be detected, eventmarkers and reward will not be send out.
• No MATLAB toolboxes are required to run ARCADE
• Store events to disk: timestamps of eventmarkers are recorded in separate .evt file. The file can be read with readEvtFile.m
• New file naming scheme: behavioral data files are now named according to the pattern subject_day_experiment_session
• In case of crashing, the behavioral .esi and .hdr files can be converted to a MATLAB file using convertEsiFile.m
• Eye position is now shared among processes via kernel32 NamedSharedMemory
• Starting and stopping of data acquisition is now triggered via kernel32 Events
• The CoreControlScreenPipe was simplified and now only transfers the trial data
• Processes are now managed using the MATLAB Java Runtime with processManager.m
• SGLNiEyeServer now samples at a fixed rate
• user32 functionality has been removed

FIXED

• Occasional freezing of ARCADE should not happen anymore. On pipe write error, the Core process continued to write instead of raising an error. This may have cause the hangups.
• Several minor bugs.