VR can help to increase the ecological validity of experiments, i.e., allowing to conduct experiments in a context that is closer to everyday life, which might lead to more generalizable and valid explanations regarding cognitive processes. VR enables researchers to study complex and naturalistic behavior in virtual environments while maintaining a high degree of experimental control. Over the last 20 years, Virtual Reality (VR) has been increasingly recognized as a powerful research tool in behavioral neuroscience.
#STIMULUS DURATION FRAMEN PSYCHOPY CODE#
Note that an EpicGames account connected to a GitHub account is necessary to get access to the UE4 source code commits.įunding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Furthermore, a custom version of UE4 used for the reaction time measurements is available on. This includes the source code of a background application developed for reaction time measurements with UE4. All UE4 project files and project builds, i.e., compiled executables of the different tests that can be executed without the UE4 Editor, can be found on. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: The complete raw dataset of all experiments described in this paper can be found in. Received: OctoAccepted: MaPublished: April 8, 2020Ĭopyright: © 2020 Wiesing et al. PLoS ONE 15(4):Įditor: Stefano Triberti, University of Milan, ITALY The latter can be achieved using a newly developed routine that allows not only accurate reaction time measures but also provides precise timing parameters that can be used in combination with time-sensitive functional measures such as electroencephalography (EEG) or transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).Ĭitation: Wiesing M, Fink GR, Weidner R (2020) Accuracy and precision of stimulus timing and reaction times with Unreal Engine and SteamVR. Overall, the present results indicate that the HTC Vive together with Unreal Engine and SteamVR can achieve high levels of precision and accuracy both concerning stimulus duration and critical time measurements. Timing benchmarks revealed that the newly developed method allows reaction time measurements with a precision and accuracy in the millisecond range. Instead of using the standard timing procedures implemented within Unreal Engine, time acquisition was outsourced to a background application. Hence, we developed a new software-based method that allows precise and accurate reaction time measurements with Unreal Engine and SteamVR. In contrast, in a second experiment, the assessment of the precision of built-in timing procedures revealed highly variable reaction time measurements and inaccurate determination of stimulus onsets. In a first experiment, objective external measures revealed that stimulus durations were highly accurate. We here investigated the precision and accuracy of the timing mechanisms of Unreal Engine 4 and SteamVR in combination with the HTC Vive VR system.
#STIMULUS DURATION FRAMEN PSYCHOPY SOFTWARE#
It remains to be tested whether these software packages provide sufficiently precise and accurate stimulus timing and time measurements that allow inferring ongoing mental and neural processes. In several recent studies, game engines like Unity or Unreal Engine were used. The increasing interest in Virtual Reality (VR) as a tool for neuroscientific research contrasts with the current lack of established toolboxes and standards.
0 kommentar(er)
