Lesson 5 - Acquiring data
At present, Wintrack does not directly support video tracking hardware. Thus, you must use a commercially available tracking system, save the data to disk and then import it to Wintrack. The Open Case Document command automatically recognizes and imports several foreign file data formats:
Moreover, the Acquire EthoVision Experiment command converts entire Noldus™ EthoVision experiments into a corresponding set of Wintrack case documents.
To give you the possibility to create new case documents without having a tracking device at hand, Wintrack lets you record "pseudo" trials from screen using the computer mouse. This is a two step process. You first create an empty case document with the necessary number of trial views and then record the data trial by trial.
Creating a new case document...
- Click the New Case Document button of the toolbar
while pressing and holding down the Shift key. The New
Case Document dialog is displayed. Enter a name for the new document:
MYCAS1.WTR and press Ok. MYCAS1.WTR is displayed as an icon and the
Case Properties dialog pops up:
- In the dialog field labeled trials, enter 4. This is the total number of trials the document will have.
- In the dialog field labeled setup version, keep the default 1. This is an advanced option which we do not need to consider now.
- In the dialog field labeled row/session breaks, enter 3. This instructs Wintrack to insert a row break before trial view 3 when displaying the case document. Thus, there will be two rows and two columns in the document. You could specify row breaks anywhere in the document, rows need not be of equal length.
- In the dialog fields labeled rows and columns enter 2. This instructs Wintrack to display two columns and two rows when the document is opened, that is the entire document. If the document had more trials you could use this option to have Wintrack open it in a zoomed state, with only part of the trials visible. As you already know, you can later change the zoom state using the Zoom Case Document command.
- In the dialog field labeled top left trial, keep the default 1. This field is only important, if there are too many rows or columns in the document to fit into the document window.
- Click Ok to close the dialog box and start the analysis.
- Wintrack displays the empty case document.
There are no paths in the trial views, of course, but the arena is drawn, as well as the five potential goal positions which we specified during the first lesson of the tutorial. No goals are drawn - they will be selected as we record data. Next, we will add data to the document.
Acquiring trial data...
- Click the Acquire Trial button of the toolbar
while pressing and holding down the Shift key. The Acquire
Trial dialog is displayed:
- In the dialog field labeled target trial, accept the default 1.
- In the dialog field labeled maximal duration [s], enter 20. This is the time after which Wintrack will automatically terminate every trial if the goal has not been found.
- In the dialog field labeled sampling interval [s], accept the default 0.240.
- In the dialog field labeled smoothing frame [s], accept the default 0.5. After acquisition, the data will be subjected to running average smoothing with a smoothing frame of 0.5s.
- In the dialog field labeled goal position, type NW.
- In the dialog field labeled release point, type S.
- In the dialog field labeled trial note, you could enter a short note which describes the trial. But now let's accept the default which simply inserts the recording time and date.
- Do not yet press Ok, but read on!
- After you have pressed Ok, Wintrack will no
longer properly respond to system requests but will exclusively concentrate
on the movements of the computer mouse. Do not attempt to switch
to another application (not even to Windows Help running the Wintrack
tutorial) during data acquisition, or to move the mouse outside the
trial view! The consequences are unpredictable.
The view of the trial which is to be recorded will be maximized to fill all available space in the program window. The selected goal will be displayed as a black square and the release point will appear as a red dot. The mouse cursor will change to a cross hair, indicating that Wintrack is ready to record data:- You will move the mouse to the release point.
- You will press the left mouse button and without releasing it, slowly move the mouse. The cursor position will be sampled at with an interval of 0.24s until you release the left mouse button or until 20s have elapsed.
- As sampling terminates, Wintrack will ask whether you wish to accept the recorded data. Depending on your answer, you will be given the opportunity to repeat the trial or the case window will be restored to the previous state.
Remember not to switch to any other application until you have completed the recording of the trial. Press Ok now and record your first trial!
- Press the Acquire Trial button of the toolbar
without pressing the Shift key.
- A message appears telling you that Wintrack is ready to acquire trial 2 of case MYCAS1. The program has automatically determined that the next empty trial is trial 2. Since you bypassed the Acquire Trial dialog, the same release point and goal position will be used as for trial 1. Press Ok.
- Press Ok and without switching to any other application, record path data for trial 2 in the same way you did for trial 1.
- Click the Acquire Trial button of the toolbar
while pressing and holding the Shift key.
- The Acquire Trial dialog is displayed. In the dialog fields labeled goal position and release point type SE and N, respectively. Accept the defaults for all other fields and press Ok.
- Record path data for trial 3 in the same way you did for trial 1 and 2.
- Again click the Acquire Trial button of the toolbar
while pressing and holding the Shift key.
- The Acquire Trial dialog is displayed. In the dialog fields labeled goal position and release point type NO and W, respectively. This will be a probe trial with NO goal. Accept the defaults for all other fields and press Ok.
- Record path data for trial 4 in the same way you did for trials 1-3.
- Click the Save Case button of the toolbar while pressing and holding down the Shift key. The Save Case Document As dialog is displayed. Save the document as MYCAS1.WTR to your WINTRACK directory. Accept defaults for all other fields in the dialog.
Lesson 6 - Case variables and toolbar drag and drop will introduce a new variable type and demonstrate how to analyze a whole group of case documents with a single drag and drop from Windows™ Explorer.
