Research Software

Software written by Andrew Wilson
I mostly use Matlab to run experiments and analyse my data. I use the Psychtoolbox to control my stimuli; this is a free third party Matlab toolbox that provides tight control over graphics timing and a variety of methods for producing stimuli.

Masked Priming Toolbox v1.1

Example masks and stimuli from Wilson et al (2011)

I was a post-doctoral research fellow for a year at the University of Warwick, using masked priming tasks to investigate action selection with Friederike Schlaghecken and James Tresilian. To run the experiments we needed, I wrote a Matlab toolbox using the PTB-3 that presents various kinds of masked stimuli and records responses from keyboards (for reaction time), as well as tablets (for 2D kinematics) and one kind of force transducer. It handles all aspects of stimulus presentation, data analysis (including an extensive set of kinematic analyses), and is freely available for researchers to use under a liberal Creative Commons license. I only ask that if you tweak or add anything to the toolbox, that you send me a copy so I can keep an up to date version available here.

If you download this, or have questions, please feel free to add a comment!

Paper describing the toolbox
Wilson, A. D., Tresilian, J. R., & Schlaghecken, F. (2011). The Masked Priming Toolbox: An open source Matlab toolbox for masked priming researchers. Behavior Research Methods 43, 210-214. Download

Paper using the toolbox
Wilson, A. D., Tresilian, J. R., & Schlaghecken, F. (2010). Continuous priming effects on discrete response choices. Brain & Cognition, 74(2), 152-159. Download

Download Masked Toolbox Zip File (current version 1.0.1, dated 4th March, 2009)

Masked Prime Toolbox by Andrew D. Wilson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Links to other useful software

Tracker Video Analysis and Modelling Tool: Tracker is a free video analysis and modelling tool built on the Open Source Physics (OSP) Java framework. It's a great way to do simple motion analysis, and to introduce students to the principles of kinematic analysis. If you're interested in what it can do, have a look at this post on Wired about the physics of the yellow Angry Bird.

PsychoPy: An open source alternative to programmes such as e-Prime, which present simple stimuli and collect straightforward RT data.

Plot Digitiser: Java programme for getting numbers out of scans of scatterplot, etc.