Software to work with multiple sensors and actuators via Arduino to run training/experimental session with animal subjects.

Jinook Oh & W. Tecumseh Fitch
Cognitive Biology department, University of Vienna
Contact: jinook0707@gmail.com, tecumseh.fitch@univie.ac.at
May 2020.

• Python (3.7)
• wxPython (4.0)
• numPy (1.15)
• OpenCV (4.1)
• pySerial (3.4)
• (PyOpenAL)

This software was used in 2015 to train/test common marmoset monkeys,
using an arena equipped with three surrounding screens (one touch-screen and two normal screens on each side), three webcams to watch the frontal area of each screen, an automatic feeder[1], and 5.1 channel speakers also surrounding the arena.

Its goal was to draw attention of monkeys to moving circles and stimulate them to touch the touch-screen. The circles continuously changed its size and randomly moved around while sticking together as a group, to imitate a group flies flying around. The circles moved across three screens and when a subject was detected close to a side screen, they moved to the middle screen. When a subject touched the circles in the middle screen, the automatic feeder released a piece of food to reinforece the behaviour of touching visual stimulus on the touch-screen.

This software was programmed to use the specific design of the arena, and its current state is not suitable for using it for other training/experiments as it is. However, this is uploaded to a repository in 2020 for the purpose of sharing pieces of code with coleagues.
It will be updated when it's developed in more generalized and structured form.

[1] Oh, J., Hofer, R., & Fitch, W. T. (2017). An open source automatic feeder for animal experiments. HardwareX, 1, 13-21. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468067216300050?via%3Dihub