Presentation runs neurobehavioral experiments. Presentation is a stimulus delivery and experimental control software system for neuroscience. Presentation was designed for behavioral and physiological experiments that collect fMRI, ERP, MEG, reaction time, and electrophysiological (e.g. single neuron) data. At the same time, Presentation is very flexible and has many features that make it applicable to a diverse range of applications. Presentation is designed to provide the best possible timing accuracy and timing verification on standard hardware. Presentation is also completely programmable.

Presentation was created by neuroscientists. It grew out of an active research lab doing ERP and fMRI studies using very demanding paradigms. Presentation development was originally supported by NINDS (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke), and is currently supported by sales. The rapid development continues to be guided by the needs of, and feedback from, the large group of users. The programs runs on Windows and uses standard PC hardware.

Presentation features

Visual Stimuli

* Display of stored images in most formats (Picture Stimuli)
* Use of any adapter display mode from 32 bit color to palettized display modes
* Synchronization of stimulus appearance with monitor vertical scan (Picture Timing Control)
* Display of a new stimulus up to every vertical scan
* Display of stored videos (Video Stimuli)
* Animation
* 3D stimuli, from primitive objects to imported models, with lighting and camera control

Auditory Stimuli

* Resolution: 8, 16 or 24 bit, with 1-8 channels of sound
* Use of stored sounds: Windows .wav format
* Independent volume control on each channel
* Simultaneous presentation of multiple sounds
* Sub-millisecond delay to stimulus onset for some sound cards

Multi-tasking

* Display of simultaneous audio and/or visual stimuli: e.g., multiple sounds, sounds with graphics and/or video, graphics with video
* Monitoring responses and I/O ports, with high accuracy even during high-rate multimodal stimuli

Input Devices

* Button press input from mouse, keyboard, joystick, port devices, and DirectX-compatible devices (Button Devices)
* Coordinate input from mouse and joystick (Axis Devices)

Port Input

* Monitoring ports for input
* Use of standard serial, standard parallel, National Instruments, and Measurement Computing device
* Use of multiple ports simultaneously

Port Output

* Interface to external devices and acquisition systems
* Use of standard serial, standard parallel, National Instruments, and Measurement Computing devices
* Codes or pulses time-locked to event detection
* Use of multiple ports simultaneously

Eye-tracker interfacing

* Generalized common interface for communication with eye trackers (Eye Trackers)
* Implementations available for many popular eye trackers
* Access gaze position, blink, fixation, pupil, and saccade data
* Present eye dependent stimuli

fMRI (external device) synchronization

* Reception of pulses from external devices through any available port device (fMRI Mode Interfacing)
* Start of stimulus sequences on specific pulse/scan (fMRI Mode)
* Interrupt enabled when using the parallel port
* Emulation mode for testing of fMRI experiments

Programmability

* Built-in programming language for custom control (PCL)
* Control of stimulus presentation in real-time
* Adjustment of stimuli based on responses or external inputs in real-time
* Implementation of adaptive procedures

Timing

* Reporting of times for any event of interest (Logfiles)
* Verification of all timing to detect operating system problems (Uncertainties)
* Use of DirectX to obtain the best possible performance from standard hardware

External software interfacing

* General purpose plug-in interface (Using Workspace Objects)
* Interface to Matlab (Matlab Workspace Extension)
* Eye tracker plug-in interface (Eye Trackers)
* Run experiments using your own front end (Presentation control API)