Acquire Trial command
Wintrack does not support data acquisition using video tracking hardware, but you can use it to acquire event data via the keyboard. For demonstration and test purposes, Wintrack also permits to acquire path data by dragging the computer mouse over the trial view on screen.
How to acquire event data using the keyboard...
- Open, activate or create the case document you wish to add data to.
- Select Import/Acquire > Acquire Trial from the File Menu.
- A dialog box appears. Press the Help button if you need instructions on how to fill in the dialog box fields. Select Keyboard as Source. Fill in the remaining fields that are not grayed or accept defaults and press Ok to continue. Or press Cancel to abort.
- Wintrack is now ready to begin recording key strokes. Recording begins as soon as you press and release the Space bar. You may also press Escape to abort the procedure.
- During the recording process the status line displays the number of seconds elapsed and the number of keystrokes recorded. If you switch to another document or application while recording, the target document looses the input focus and keyboard events will no longer be recorded.
- If you press Escape or after the preset time has elapsed, recording
stops and the target document is updated. Even though Wintrack counts
all keystrokes, only those of valid event keys are transferred to the
document.
The command adds path and event data to a case document one trial at a time in ascending sequential order. Because no movements are recorded, all data points will be located at coordinate in the center of the arena. If you record to a trial that already contains data, Wintrack will leave its path data unaltered, but merge the existing and new event data. Selecting File instead of Keyboard as Source permits to import Imétronic Freezing™ keyboard data that has previously been recorded using the MICE utility developed by Alexei Vyssotski.
How to acquire path and event data using mouse and keyboard...
- Open, activate or create the case document you wish to add data to. Make sure that the target trial is empty.
- Select Acquire Trial from the File Menu.
- A dialog box appears. Press the Help button if you need instructions on how to fill in the dialog box fields. Select Mouse as Source. Fill in the remaining fields that are not grayed or accept defaults and press Ok to continue. Or press Cancel to abort.
- Wintrack maximizes the document window and zooms in on the trial
for which data is to be acquired. The mouse cursor changes to a cross
hair, indicating that Wintrack is now ready to acquire synchronized
path and event data:
- Move the computer mouse to the release point which appears as a red dot. Press the left mouse button and, without releasing it, drag the mouse over the arena. Wintrack will sample the path of the computer mouse at the specified frequency until you release the left mouse button to indicate that you wish to end the acquisition or until the pre-set time has elapsed. During data acquisition do not attempt to switch to another application or to move the mouse outside the trial view! The consequences are unpredictable, because Wintrack is not properly responding to system requests while acquiring data from screen!
- However, while acquiring path data, you can record events by pressing the appropriate event keys on the keyboard whenever the events are observed.
- As soon as the acquisition is complete, Wintrack displays a second message asking if you want to accept the data. Press Ok to accept or No to reject the data.
- If you rejected the data, another message appears, asking if you wish to repeat the acquisition. Press Retry to do so or Cancel to leave the trial without data.
The command adds path and event data to a case document one trial at a time in ascending sequential order. The target trial must be empty. If you specify a target trial manually, make sure it contains no data, or else Wintrack will remind you that you need to clear the destination trial before acquiring data for it. If you abort data acquisition, Wintrack will label that trial "acquisition failed". You need to clear the trial before you can again acquire data for it.
Related commands...
New case documents are created using the New Case Document command. Use the Open Case Document command to open existing destination documents and the Save Case Document As command to save the acquired data. With the Delete Trials command you can clear trials. Use the Arena Properties command to control scaling and change the appearance and position of the fields displayed in the case window. The Print Case Document command lets you print case documents on the current printer or copy them to the clipboard as graphics. The Acquire EthoVision experiment command lets you convert Noldus™ EthoVision experiments into sets of Wintrack case documents. Using the Transform Path command you can apply various geometric transformation to the path data of case documents
Additional information...
- See Acquire Trial dialog for details on the associated dialog boxes.
- The related macro statement is explained in Acquire Trial statement.
- There is a toolbar shortcut to acquire a trial.
- Inside case documents provides advanced information on case documents.
- See Creating and using macros to learn how to use and create macros.
- Keyboard Shortcuts gives an overview on keyboard shortcuts.
- Using the Wintrack toolbar gives an overview of toolbar shortcuts.
