PsychoPy is an open-source package for creating psychology stimuli in Python.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

PsychoPy is an open-source package for running experiments in Python (a real and free alternative to Matlab).

PsychoPy combines the graphical strengths of OpenGL with the easy Python syntax to give scientists a free and simple stimulus presentation and control package.

It is used by many labs worldwide for psychophysics, cognitive neuroscience and experimental psychology.

Because it’s open source, you can download it and modify the package if you don’t like it. And if you make changes that others might use then please consider giving them back to the community via the mailing list. PsychoPy has been written and provided to you absolutely for free. For it to get better it needs as much input from everyone as possible.

Features.

There are many advantages to using PsychoPy, but here are some of the key ones

Simple install process

Huge variety of stimuli (see screenshots) generated in real-time:

linear gratings, bitmaps constantly updating

radial gratings

random dots

movies (DivX, mov, mpg...)

text (unicode in any truetype font)

shapes

sounds (tones, numpy arrays, wav, ogg...)

Platform independent - run the same script on Win, OS X or Linux

Flexible stimulus units (degrees, cm, or pixels)

Coder interface for those that like to program

Builder interface for those that don’t

Input from keyboard, mouse or button boxes

Multi-monitor support

Automated monitor calibration (requires PR650 or Minolta LS110)

Hardware Integration.

PsychoPy supports communication via serial ports, parallel ports and compiled drivers (dlls and dylibs), so it can talk to any hardware that your computer can! Interfaces are prebuilt for;

Spectrascan PR650
Minolta LS110
Cambridge Research Systems Bits++
Cedrus response boxes (RB7xx series)

To Install.

I'm new to python and use Windows Download the StandalonePsychoPy.xxx.win32.exe file on the right and double click it to install. If there's an update that's more recent than the latest Standalone verion the software will automatically fetch and install a patch for this on first run.

I'm new to python and have an intel mac. Download the Standalone distributions for OS X (the version for 10.6 also runs on 10.5, but probably not 10.4). This includes a complete python installation so just drag it to your applications folder and double-click. If there's an update that's more recent than the latest Standalone version the software will automatically fetch and install this on first run.

I'm experienced with python and already have the dependencies. Go to your terminal or command window and type sudo easy_install -U psychopy and the latest version will be fetched automatically (skip the sudo part to do this from a win32 command window).

I'm very experienced with python and want to see the latest code. Fetch a copy of the source repository at http://github.com/psychopy/psychopy

I use Linux. For Debian-based packages you should install the package from the http://neuro.debian.net/ repository

Some deprecated versions of PsychoPy (pre v0.97) are available at sourceforge

Installing dependencies.

If you use the Standalone versions for Win32 or OS X then these are automatically included.
PsychoPy requires python 2.4 or 2.5 and numpy, scipy, matplotlib, pyglet, pygame, pyOpenGL, Python Imaging Library, wxPython, setuptools and pywin32 (windows only).

pyserial is also needed if you wish to use serial ports.

The Enthought Python Distribution contains all the dependencies that PsychoPyß needs except for Pygame. So the easiest way to install is to fetch that and then the latest pygame for python 2.5

Screenshots.
The following screenshots give you an idea of the stimuli and controls in PsychoPy and how to use them. Click on the screenshot to see the code that created it.

For more complete demos of full experimental and analysis code see the experiment templates