OpenSesame Plug-in: Radboud Buttonbox

An OpenSesame plug-in for collecting button responses, audio detection, voice key and sending stimulus synchronization triggers with the Radboud Buttonbox to data acquisition systems.

Copyright, 2022, Bob Rosbag

This plugin makes use of the RuSocSci python package developed by Wilbert van Ham. Radboud Buttonbox is developed by Pascal de Water. Exact references will follow in the future.

About

The Technical Support Group (Radboud University, Social Sciences) developed a USB Arduino based Buttonbox which can be used for time accurate (1ms) button press, voice key, sound key registration and sending parallel port like triggers. Upper case A, B, C, D, E (, F, G, H) are used for key presses, and lower case a, b, c, d, e (, f, g, h) are used for key releases. Uppercase S is used for sound key detection and uppercase V for voice key.

For more information:

http://tsgdoc.socsci.ru.nl/index.php?title=ButtonBoxes

This plug-in consists of foreground and background (multithreaded) items.

Difference between foreground and background:

• Foreground item starts button/signal registration until it detects an allowed button or the set duration has passed.
• Background item consist of a 'start' and 'wait' item. These are fully multi-threaded. After the start of the button/signal registration, the item will immediately advance to the next item. When the experiment reaches the 'wait' item, it will wait until a button/signal has been detected by the 'start' item or the duration has passed.

This plug-in has six items:

• Init initialization of the buttonbox, this should be placed at the beginning of an experiment.
• Wait Buttons waits for a button press or release before continuing to the next item in the experiment
• Get Buttons Start starts a new thread which monitors for button presses/releases, it will directly advance to the next item in the experiment
• Get Buttons Wait waits until the thread from 'Get Buttons Start' is finished (has detected a button press/release) before advancing to the next item in the experiment
• Send Control send control code to the buttonbox, for example 'Calibrate Sound', 'Detect Sound'
• Send Trigger for sending triggers to hardware with a parallel port

Timestamps can be found in the logs by the name: time_response_[item_name]

In dummy mode (an option of the Init item) the plug-in runs without a buttonbox: the keyboard is used for button responses, and triggers and commands are not sent. Get Buttons Start then waits for the key press itself, because the keyboard can't be read in the background.

Linux and Windows are supported (possibly also macOS, not tested). The plug-in needs OpenSesame 4 (Python 3.10 or later) and the RuSocSci package, which is installed with it:

pip install opensesame-plugin-radboudbox

Buttonboxes

Firmware. The BITSI 2015 runs one of three firmware versions; the ID string it sends when it starts (extended mode) tells which:

The sources of the 2014 and 2018 firmware, for the Duemilanove and the Teensy, are in the Buttonbox downloads of the TSG; the 2018 Duemilanove firmware uses the same pins as the 2014 firmware. The source of the 2015-11-18 firmware is not in these downloads.

Mode. The box stores its mode (simple or extended) itself. Bitsi Extended Mode in the Init item must match it: a box in the other mode sends wrong triggers. Init checks this with the ID string the box sends when it starts, and raises an error when the modes differ. When the ID string doesn't arrive in time, the mode can't be checked; there is a warning in the log.

Port. With port autodetect, Init takes the first buttonbox it finds (an FTDI, Arduino or Teensy USB device). Other USB serial devices, such as the serial port of an audio interface, are skipped. A Device id takes that position in the list of USB serial devices (0 is the device connected last). To choose a port yourself, set Port, e.g. /dev/ttyUSB0 or COM3.

Latency timer. The FTDI chip of the BITSI 2015 sends small amounts of data after its latency timer, 16 ms by default: button presses can then arrive up to 16 ms late. It must be 1 ms, and Init raises an error otherwise. On Windows, set it in the Device Manager (Ports, the COM port, Properties, Port Settings, Advanced, Latency Timer); it can change back, e.g. after a driver update. On Linux it is /sys/bus/usb-serial/devices/ttyUSB0/latency_timer. The Teensy box has no latency timer.

Triggers. Send Trigger works on all boxes, in both modes. Its pulse mode sets the value, waits for the pulse time and sets 0, so it also works with the 2014 firmware.

Send Control (extended mode only):

The 2014 and 2018 columns follow the firmware sources; the 2015-11-18 column is what was tested on a box. Pulse Out and Pulse Time are an error on a box with the 2014 firmware (when its ID string arrived, and it ends with Ready!): that firmware doesn't have them.

License

This software is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License 3. The full license should be included in the file COPYING, or can be obtained from:

• http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt

Documentation

Installation instructions and documentation on OpenSesame are available on the documentation website:

• http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/