Glossary Item Box

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Glossary

Glossary

This is a common topic for MovALyzeR, GripAlyzeR and ScriptAlyzeR. These programs will be referred to as MovAlyzeR on this page.

This section lists all the commonly encountered keywords/phrases within the program.

Applies to MovAlyzeR, ScriptAlyzer and GripAlyzeR

Applies only to MovAlyzeR and ScriptAlyzeR (except stimuli, targets, and submovements)

Applies only to GripAlyzeR

NOTE: These keywords/phrases when entered in to the help search box, returns all the relevant topics.

A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M   N   O   P   Q   R   S   T   U   V   W   X   Y   Z

A

ABSOLUTE JERK

See JERK first

Absolute Jerk value calculated at every sample from jerk values Jx and Jy as:

Jabs = {SQRT(Jx**2 + Jy**2)} * duration, units: cm3/s2

ABSOLUTE JERK Per Stroke

An extracted feature per stroke, which is calculated as the average of the squared values of absolute jerk (Jabs) at every sample point.

ACTIVATION CODE

Code generated by NeuroScript to be entered into your application. See also Authorization Request Code.

ACTIVATION REQUEST CODE

See Authorization Request Code .

ANALYSIS CHART

A chart with several display and customization options to plot the statistical results per experiment.

AUTHORIZATION REQUEST CODE

We call this also Activation Request Code or ARC. It is a code generated by MovAlyzeR when running for the first time, or when purchasing or upgrading. This code needs to be sent to NeuroScript where an Activation Code will be generated and provided to you to be entered into your application.


B

BACKUP

An action that allows an extra copy of the experiment files and/or data to be stored on a local or network disk, so that experiments/data can be recovered in case of a problem. The program automatically prompts you to make a backup every time you exit the program. You can also customize you backup options.


C

CLIENT

A computer on which MovAlyzeR/GripAlyzeR is installed, which interacts with the program on a central computer (server) that stores shared experiments and data.

CONDITIONS

Different writing patterns (e.g., stroke to a 0.2-cm target at 45 degrees direction, write the word "elite") or may be the same writing pattern but executed under different instructions (e.g., as fast as possible, 2 cm large) or under a different exposure condition (e.g., distracting sounds) within the same experiment. Conditions may also differ by different stimuli or precues.

CONSISTENCY CHECKING

This feature per condition enables the program to check whether the trials meet a set of defined criteria to generate errors (and discard trials) or warnings. Hence, this allows certain trials to be separated as 'bad' trials and excludes them from summarization and statistical analysis. Trials can also be set to be checked for target reached errors.

CONSISTENCY ERROR DATA

Error details including the nature and description for every trial that has been rejected (red check mark), based upon the consistency checking rules (or other automatically generated errors). This data is available in a text file per condition. If there is no error for a trial, the error file shows 'OK' for that trial.

CONSISTENT DATA

Processed data columns for every trial that has been accepted (green check mark). This data is written in a separate text file per condition. Only this data will be included in the summarization and final analysis per experiment.

COORDINATES

The individual numbers produced by the movement recording device: x (horizontal position), y (vertical position), z (axial pen pressure) coordinates. More coordinates may be implemented in the future. Coordinates may have (integer or floating-point values) and are space separated with 3 coordinates maximum per line.


D

DAQPAD

Data Acquisition device (National Instruments 6020E) which acts as the interface between the Gripper hardware and the GripAlyzeR program. The input device is chosen as DAQPad in GripAlyzeR when the data from Gripper hardware has to be collected.

DATA GENERATION

Handwriting data patterns can be automatically generated by the program by using default or customized parameters. The data can be chosen to be included as a trial in a particular experiment, group, subject and condition.

DATABASE

Hidden tables that store the different items, descriptions, properties and the relationships that define the structure of any experiment. These tables are located as files in the user folder (with extensions .dat and .idx) in the user root data path and transparent to the user (can be read only by the MovAlyzeR/GripAlyzeR program).

DELETE

Program operation which physically removes the selected item (group, condition...etc) from the database and will be no longer available.

DIGITIZER

A digitizer consists of a pen and a flat tablet that digitizes the position of the pen tip on the surface, e.g., in terms of a horizontal (x) and vertical (y) coordinate, plus a penup/down or pen pressure coordinate (z). In some digitizers, pen orientation in x and y directions, axial rotation, and height can be measured, along with the movements of a second pen simultaneously (not implemented in MovAlyzeR or Scriptalyzer). Digitizer specifications and digitized data specifications are the number of levels per inch (e.g., 1270, 2540, 3048), and sampling rate (e.g., 100, 120, 200 Hz), and axial pen pressure (e.g., in 256 levels, not necessarily calibrated). The RMS accuracy of the x and y positions is larger than the resolution due to noise (e.g., 0.05 cm) and the constancy of the sampling rate.

DOWNLOAD (only for NETWORK VERSION)

Program operation performed from within the central user (UUU), which downloads a whole experiment or individual items in to a certain user. This can be performed only from list of items under the item folders in the left window tree.


E

ELEMENTS

An object (square, rectangle, horizontal or vertical line) that can be used as a target. Attributes such as position, dimension, text, colors for successful/incorrect target, scheduling the appearance/disappearance on a time-line and animation, make the element very versatile.

Only elements defined as targets can be sequenced and checked for target reached errors. Elements/targets have to be added to a stimulus (which in turn is added to an experiment condition), in order to make them functional and sequence them.

EXPERIMENTS

Stand-alone tests that are done with the same device (Wacom UD series, mouse, imported data, Gripper data) requiring specific device settings.

EXPORT

The action through which a MovAlyzeR/GripAlyzeR experiment and/or data can be packaged in to 1-3 files that can be used by another user or on another computer.

EXTRACTED DATA

Parameters extracted per stroke/segment. These are listed in columns in a text file per condition.


F

FEEDBACK

Visual feedback presented on the display. Feedback can be customized with adjustable gain, rotation and other options per condition.

FEEDBACK COLOR CODING

Feedback of processed data charts of handwriting trials. Color coding schemes can be created and added per condition to color variations on charts, based on a certain processed data value.

FILTERING

The steps in the processing of a movement pattern, where noise is reduced, based on the filter cut-off frequency specified per experiment. FFT and Butterworth low-pass filters are available in the program.


G

GROUPS

Different populations of participants (e.g., 8-year olds, Grade 5, Young Adults, Patients) or different sessions that a person participated (e.g., before drug intake, the first training session) or different locations where data is collected (e.g., hospital, home, Phoenix).


I

IMPORT

The action through which a MovAlyzeR/GripAlyzeR experiment and/or associated data from another user or computer can be imported in to the current user.

Data from other sources: The option 'data import wizard' allows data collected from other sources to be brought into a MovAlyzeR/GripAlyzeR experiment for processing and analysis. Example, processing and analysis of accelerometer data.

INCH

Measure of size (1 inch = 2.54 centimeters). Although in research the metric system is always used, many technical objects in research are in simple, rounded inch sizes. US paper sizes (e.g., 8.5x11, 8.5x14), digitizer sizes (e.g., 4x3, 8x6, 12x9), monitor-screen sizes (e.g., 15.2x11.4, 16x12), scanner sizes (matching paper sizes) are often in integer inches. Monitor screens are measured on the diagonal. The aspect ratio is often 4:3. Thus, diagonal:horizontal size:vertical size are related as 5:4:3. Monitor-screen diagonal sizes are mostly 15, 17, 19, 20, 21 inch. For LCD monitors the image size equals the screen size, but CRT monitors show images that are about 0.5 inch less than the tube specification.

INPUT DEVICE

A device connected to the computer, that can be sampled to obtain raw data in the program. MovAlyzeR uses a Wintab driver to collect data from the tablet.

Mouse or Pen (tablet/digitizer) in MovAlyzeR and Gripper hardware in GripAlzyeR.

INSTRUCTION

Instructions can be used to provide the subject/experiment useful comments or steps to be followed, before or during an experiment. Instruction can be provided at different levels:

Experiment instructions per experiment, can be defined to be displayed before an experiment starts. Condition instructions settable per condition, can be chosen to display at the first trial or every trial of a condition. A short instruction can also be displayed in the toolbar during the trial recording.


J

JERK

Jerk is the third derivative of movement coordinates derived at different levels (units: cm/s**3). In MovAlyzeR, Jerk is calculated for x coordinates as Jx, and y coordinates as Jy. These are available as processed data and chart.

See ABSOUTE JERK and NORMALIZED JERK.


L

LOGGING

A program operation which allows events occuring during any action performed in MovAlyzeR/GripAlyzeR to be logged into a Text file (LOG FILE). This file can be used for troubleshooting purposes and is usually required by NeuroScript for problem resolution.


M

MAGNETIC FORCE

Force value in Newtons units applied to the magnet in the Gripper hardware at the start of a trial. The value can be set per condition with the default value set to 8 N.


N

NORMALIZE

Mathematical operation of a variable value so that its normalized value is rescaled into a known scale (e.g., a scale from 0 to 1) or a scale that does not depend upon the measurement scale (e.g., normalized jerk).

NORMALIZED JERK

See ABSOLUTE JERK.

Normalized integrated absolute jerk squared for the overall segment (normalization is not performed on submovements as normalization is only defined for complete strokes).

FORMULA: SQRT (0.5 * SUM (Jabs(t)**2) * duration**5 / length**2).


O

OFFLINE

Offline signatures or offline handwriting are previously-written, optically scanned, static images, generated by a scanner. See Scanner.

ONE STROKE ANALYSIS (optional)

A process by which all the strokes are combined into one stroke during feature extraction that is commonly used in goal-directed movements. Data charts will display movement onset, offset, with segmentation points (and strokes). One Stroke Analysis combines the secondary submovement of the first stroke with consecutive strokes (even if a higher velocity peak occurs later in the movement).

ONLINE

Online signatures or online handwriting are presently-written, digitizer-recorded, time-changing, pen-movement signals which allow for the reconstruction of stroke sequence, pen speed, stroke duration, pen pressure, generated by a digitizer or tablet. See Digitizer.


P

PRIMARY SUBMOVEMENT

See also 'Secondary submovement'.

The initial ballistic segment of a movement (or stroke) that is considered to be under feedforward control. The primary submovement begins at movement onset with the end specified by the user, either aa the first zero-crossing of the velocity profile after peak velocity <or> at the first velocity minimia after peak velocity. All movements have a primary submovement. The total movement is comprised of the primary and secondary submovements.

PROCESS TRIALS

Process by which all the trials go through segmentation, feature extraction and consistency checking. By default, the trials are processed after every trial during recording. See REPROCESS TRIALS.

PROCESSED DATA

Resultant data after processing the raw data with filtering, rotation, etc.

Data x-y-z position, velocity, acceleration, jerk, etc. at every sample point per trial may be viewed in a text file or a data chart.


Q

QUESTIONNAIRE

A list of questions assembled from the questionnaire template, per group under an experiment. The questionnaire can be presented to the participant before recording initiation, or at a later time. Results per subject can be viewed or used to create a report file.

QUESTIONNAIRE TEMPLATE

A master list/database of questions per user. The questions are intially created in the template and are available to be added to other questionnaires for any experiment for that user.


R

RADIAN (RAD)

Measure of angle: (PI radians = 180 degrees).
Rules of thumb to convert to radians (rad) from degrees (deg).
180 deg = PI rad (exact definition); 180 deg = 3.1416 rad (error 0.0005 deg) 180 deg = 3.00 +5% rad (error 0.5 deg) 90 deg = 1.5708 rad (error 0.0003 deg) 60 deg = 1.00 +5% rad (error 0.2 deg).
45 deg = 0.75 +5% rad (error 0.2 deg).
1 rad = 60 -5% deg (error 0.2 deg).

RAW DATA

X, Y and Z positional coordinates collected from the tablet/mouse (MovAlyzeR)
or
lower grip, upper grip and load force data from the Gripper hardware (GripAlyzeR)

Can be viewed in a text file or a chart per trial.

RECORDING WINDOW

The portion of MovAlyzeR/GripAlyzeR window on the display used for mapping to the tablet area and where all the recordings will be displayed. The size of the recording window can be set to the size of the tablet <or> the entire display (area available after displaying toolbars, left tree menu, etc.).

REDO TRIAL

An option in which the user can choose to repeat a particular trial. Redo trial can be performed after the experiment is completed <or> an option can be set such that the program prompts during recording to redo a trial (1) after every trial <or> (2) manually redo if the trial is bad <or> (3) automatically redo if the trial is bad.

RELATIONSHIP

The point of integration of different items within an experiment. The 'View Relationship' option can be used to view the relationship between subjects, groups, conditions, experiments, etc.

RELATIVE

Mathematical operation of a variable's value so that its relative value is a fraction or a percentage of the value it is compared to (e.g., relative time to peak velocity).

REPROCESS TRIALS

Process by which all the trials go through segmentation, feature extraction and consistency checking after recording is completed. Trials will need to be reprocessed anytime an experiment or condition setting is changed.

RESET INPUT DEVICE

A program action that resets all the resources used by the input device. It aids to clear up any problems encountered by the program while interacting with the input device.

RESOLUTION (Device Resolution)

A value that specifies the distance in cm that corresponds with a data difference of 1. It can be set per experiment, depending on the input device used for that experiment.

RESULTS WINDOW

The bottom window in the program that displays in real time all the events occuring during any action (e.g., the steps during recording). These can also be written to a LOG FILE for later viewing or for troubleshooting.

ROOT DATA PATH

Path of the folder on the local or network disk where the data and the experiment files per user are stored (e.g., C:\MovAlyzeR data\USR). The default is the folder where MovAlyzeR is installed. Similarly, root path can also be specified to store a backup copy of all the files (e.g., on another disk, E:\MovAlyzeR data\USR\backup).

Please note that the user has to have read and write permissions for the folder/s selected.


S

SAMPLES

The coordinates at each specified point in time recorded by the recording device, the importing device, or the data simulator. Ideally, samples are taken at a constant and known rate that is specified.

SAMPLING RATE

An input device parameter defined as the number of samples per second (Hz = 1/second). It can be set per experiment, depending on the input device used for that experiment.

SCANNER

A scanner consists of a glass plate with a photosensitive bar that scans underneath the glass plate thus creating an image of the paper positioned on top of the glass plate. The image data consist of a sequence of pixels, each having color or gray level. The image data contains information about size, location, pen-stroke width, line quality, paper quality, ink color. The image data from huge files, e.g., in PCS format, which can be compressed (with little loss of information) into JPG or JPEG files (better for pictures) or TIF or TIFF files (better for line drawings). Scanner and image specifications include lines per inch (e.g., 300, 600, 1200), number of color levels (e.g., 256) or gray levels (e.g., 16 or 2).

SECONDARY SUBMOVEMENT(S)

See also 'Primary submovement'.

The corrective, or homing-in, segment of a movement (or stroke) that is considered to be under feedback control. The secondary submovement begins at the end of the primary submovement and ends at movement offset. Movements (or strokes) may or may not have secondary submovements. The total movement is comprised of the primary and secondary submovements.

SEGMENTS

See 'Strokes'.

Submovement analysis parses a stroke (or movement) into three segment measures: a primary submovement, a secondary submovement, and the total movement, per stroke. Hence, 1 stroke produces 3 segments. If submovement analysis is not performed, then segment and stroke are the same (1 stroke = 1 segment).

SERVER

A central network computer on which shared experiment or data can be stored, and accessed by all authenticated users (client computers). This computer runs a Ctree-server program to facilitate sharing and security.

SOUND

A type of stimulus that can be set per condition, for any event occuring during recording to act as a signal to the user or participant (e.g., a beep at the start of recording or .wav file at the start of stimulus).

STATUS BAR (Progress Meter)

An indicator at the bottom tool bar (similar to the one on any web browser) that shows the progress of any action (e.g., recording). On the left portion of the toolbar, the % of progress is also shown.

STIMULUS (Visual)

A group of target or non-target elements which are displayed on the screen during recording (imperative) or before recording (warning or precue), assigned per condition. The targets/elements are listed in the sequence they are to be reached.

For example, in a condition where the trial involves moving from a home position to target position, there will be two targets (home and target, listed in the same order) under a stimulus.

STROKE

Strokes are parsed movements that string together a movement pattern. Currently, a movement pattern can be segmented using 2segmentation methods: zero-crossings of the velocity profile after peak velocity, or the velocity minimia after peak velocity.

STROKE DESCRIPTION

A single or combination of symbols and letters used to define a pattern that has to be met by a movement in a trial in order to pass the consistency checking test.

SUBJECTS

Individual participants in an experiment (e.g., name and other characteristics are entered). The experiment date is generated automatically and is used to calculate the subject's age a the time of the experiment. An updateable questionnaire is produced for each subject. A subject may participate in multiple sessions, or experiments.

SUBMOVEMENTS

Separate subsegments of a stroke. Currently, a stroke is segmented into the primary and secondary submovements at the first negative-to-positive zero crossing, or minimia, of the velocity after the peak velocity.


T

TABLET

See 'Digitizer'.

TARGET

An element can be defined as a target to display all the dynamic properties during recording.

TARGET USE/SEQUENCE

A list that describes the template for the correct order of targets to be reached. Existing/new target elements can be added and arranged within this list. Sound or color changes included in the elements behave based on this list to signal the user or the subject in real-time (during recording) that the correct/incorrect targets have been reached.

 TRACELENGTH

Trace length (tracelength) is the length of a segment from begin to end, following its trajectory. This feature is extracted from handwriting movements or from images. It is calculated by summing the distances between all consecutive samples or pixels. Alternative names: Path length, contour length, road length, trajectory length. Related features are: horizontal size, vertical size of a stroke or the absolute size (=vector addition or the size of the resultant vector).

TRIALS

Multiple replications of the same condition. In learning tests, Trial may be a dimension of analysis by itself. A gray check mark next to the trial indicates that the data have not yet been processed, a green check mark indicates a good trial and a red check mark indicates a bad trial (based on the specified criteria).

TRIGGER PULSE

A pulse that is sent through the DTR pin (pin 4) of the serial (COM) port. The pulse starts with a high-to-low transition and remains low for 50 ms. It can be set per condition to be fired at various events during recording. It is useful to synchronize MovAlyzeR/GripAlyzeR with other programs/hardware.


U

USER

A person using MovAlyzeR/GripAlyzeR, who has an account with password (default password: userpass), and has full control including subject data.

UPLOAD (only for NETWORK VERSION)

Program operation performed from within any user, which uploads a whole experiment or individual items in to a shared central user (UUU). This can be performed only from the list of items under the item folders in the left window tree.


V

VIEW DATA

A program action by which various experiment, processed and resultant data can be viewed in a tabular format as well as in a text file. The data can also be plotted using the 'CHART DATA' options.


W

WORD EXTRACTION

The process by which the MovAlyzeR/ScriptAlyzeR extracts individual words from a sentence or group of strokes based on a set of pre-defined criteria. Usually used in handwriting experiments.

WIZARD

Easy step-by-step procedure to automatically perform tasks such as Setup Experiment, Run Experiment, and Generate customized data.


 

 


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