/UnityEPL

A Unity3D plugin for collecting scientific data. Created for the Computational Memory Lab at UPenn.

Primary LanguageC#GNU General Public License v3.0GPL-3.0

UnityEPL 3.0

A library for easy creation of 2D and 3D psychology experiments.

Table of Contents

Overview

The experimental designs required to explore and understand neural mechanisms are becoming increasingly complex. There exists a multitude of experimental programming libraries for both 2D and 3D games; however, none provide a simple and effective way to handle high-frequency inputs in real-time (i.e., a closed-loop system). This is because the fastest these games can consistently react is once a frame (usually 30Hz or 60Hz). We introduce UnityEPL 3.0, a framework for creating 2D and 3D experiments that handle high-frequency real-time data. It uses a safe threading paradigm to handle high precision inputs and outputs while still providing all of the power, community assets, and vast documentation of the Unity game engine. UnityEPL 3.0 supports most platforms such as Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, VR, and Web (with convenient psiTurk integration). Similar to other experimental programming libraries, it also includes common experimental components such as logging, configuration, text display, audio recording, language switching, and an EEG alignment system. UnityEPL 3.0 allows experimenters to quickly and easily create high quality, high throughput, cross-platform games that can handle high-frequency closed-loop systems.

For more information than what is in this document, please see the docs folder

Making an Experiment

It's really easy to start making a basic experiment.

Basic Instructions

  1. git submodule add git@github.com:pennmem/UnityEPL.git Assets/
  2. Add asmref for UnityEPL in Scripts
  3. Intherit ExperimentBase on your main experiment class
  4. Implement the abstract methods PreTrials, TrialStates, and PostTrials

Adding Config variables

  1. Add asmref for UnityEPL in Scripts
  2. Create a partial class named Config
  3. Implement each item in your config, so that it looks like this
public static bool elememOn { get { return Config.GetSetting<bool>("elememOn"); } }

Types of Experiments and Components Available

There are many types of experiments, but here are a few common ones and the useful components for them. There is also a list of generally useful componenets

Word List Experiments

TextDsplayer SoundRecorder VideoPlayer

Spacial Experiments

SpawnItems PickupItems

Closed-Loop Experiments

EventLoop ElememInterface

General Components

Config Logging ErrorNotifier NetworkInterface InputManager List/Array shuffling (including ones that are consistent per participant) Random values that are consistent per participant

FAQ

See the FAQ Document

Authors

James Bruska, Connor Keane, Ryan Colyer