Instrumentation & Hardware

Name Company Catalog Number Comments
Amplifier Numerous options See Curtin, Lorenzo, and Allen 2007 (PDF) for a list of vendors.
Shock box Custom Custom See supplemental material for a circuit diagram for the custom shock box used by the Curtin laboratory. An example of a commercial shock box can be found at: http://www.psychlab.com/stim_SHK_shockers.html.
Headphones Sennheiser 4974 Head phones should be capable of repeatedly delivering startle probe’s at the level chosen by experimenters (e.g.102 dB).
Participant monitoring camera PolarisUSA BC-660B Infrared capable camera so participant can be monitored while lights are off in experiment room.
Infrared panel PolarisUSA IR-TILE
Video monitor for participant monitoring Marshall Electronics M-Pro CCTV 19
Stimulus Computer Dell Dell Optiplex3010 Most modern computers appropriate
Sound card (Stimulus computer) Creative 70SB127000002 The sound card delivers the startle probes. An example of a stand alone noise generator can be found at:http://www.psychlab.com/stim_TG_WN_sound.html#.
I/O card (Stimulus computer) Measurement Computing PCI-DIO24 I/O card allows control of shock box and communication of event markers (e.g. for startle probe occurrence) to data collection computer.
Stimulus control software Psychtoolbox Open source (free) toolbox based in Matlab.
Computational platform for stimulus control and data reduction MathWorks Required to use Psychtoolbox and EEGLAB (below).
Data collection computer Dell Dell Optiplex3010 Most modern computers are appropriate
Psychophysiology acquisition software Numerous options See Curtin, Lorenzo, and Allen 2007 (PDF) for a list of vendors.
Stimulus Monitor Acer Acer AL1916W
Data Collection Monitor Acer Acer AL1916W
Participant CRT monitor ViewSonic P810
Data processing software EEGLAB Open source (free) software package based in Matlab.