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You can edit reinforcers with the following dialogue box. All reinforcers (including those nominally reward or punishment) are edited here. This means that you can make your "punishers" rewarding, or vice versa, and have detailed control over all types of reinforcement.
| • | Give pellet? If you select this option, pellets will be delivered when the subject is rewarded. |
| • | Pellets per reinforcement. Choose the number of pellets per reinforcement. (This option is only applicable if you choose to give pellets in the first place.) |
| • | Pellet pulse length (ms). Select the length, in milliseconds, of the electrical pulse that will successfully activate your pellet dispenser. (For typical Med Associates 45-mg pellet dispensers, 45 ms works quite well, and for Cambridge Cognition pellet dispensers, 100 ms is typical, but you will have to experiment to find the best value for your device.) |
| • | Time between pellets (s). The interpellet gap. Only applicable if you are giving multiple pellets per reinforcement. This determines the length of time, in seconds, that the program will wait between giving each pellet in a multi-pellet reward. Choose a value that is long enough to let your pellet dispenser recover from the previous delivery - very short interpellet gaps can cause pellet dispensers to jam. |
| • | Use pellet magazine lamp? If selected, then the pellet magazine lamp will be turned on when a pellet reward is delivered, and turned off when the subject next collects reward (i.e. responds at the pellet magazine door). |
| • | Turn on pump 1? Select this to use pump reinforcement (the PUMP device). |
| • | Pump reinforcement duration. How long should the pump run? |
| • | Pump contingent upon licking during this time? If this option is not ticked, then the pump simply runs for the time specified. If you tick this option, the pump is available for this duration, but is only actually activated when the subject licks. |
| • | Each lick delivers liquid for this duration (s): If the pump is made contingent upon licking, then each lick activates the pump for a certain time. Specify that time here. |
| • | Turn on pump 2? Optionally, you can use the PUMP2 device to deliver an alternative or additional substance (e.g. mildly aversive substances, or an alternative reward). Configure the options as for the first pump. |
| • | Extra reward device? To have another device activated when the subject is rewarded (e.g. an external tone generator), tick this option. |
| • | Duration (s). How long should this extra reward device be activated for? |
| • | Extra punishment device? To have another device activated when the subject is punished (e.g. an external tone generator), tick this option. |
| • | Duration (s). How long should this extra punishment device be activated for? |
| • | Flash visual stimulus? Optionally, an arbitrary visual stimulus can be displayed during reinforcement, and flashed if need be. The stimulus so chosen will not respond to being touched in any way (moreover, it will be "transparent" to touches, so anything being displayed by the MonkeyCantab task in use can still be responded to - so take care not to position your visual reinforcement stimulus where it might get in the way of a task!). |
| • | Overall duration (s). Choose the duration for which the stimulus should be displayed/flashed for. |
| • | On time and off time (s). Choose the "on time" and "off time" for the flashing stimulus. To explain on time, off time, and overall duration, suppose the overall duration is 10 s, with the on time at 2 s and the off time at 1 s. Then the stimulus will be on for 2 s, off for 1 s, on for 2 s, off for 1 s, on for 2 s, off for 1 s, on for 1 s - and then a total of 10 s has elapsed and the stimulus is turned off and left off. |
| • | Darkness? If you select this option, the houselight will be switched off as part of the reinforcer. |
| • | Darkness time (s). This sets the length of time the houselight will be off. |
| • | Set sound parameters. This configures the sound associated with this reinforcer (which can be disabled, or a WAV file, or a simple tone-like sound). |
| • | Flash REINFORCEMENT_INFO line. This controls the REINFORCEMENT_INFO line; by default, this is flashed on for 10ms for the default reward and 20ms for the default punishment. |
| • | Database considers this reinforcer to be a reward. Many tasks deliver "rewards" and "punishments"; the reinforcement editing process allows those rewards/punishments to be made somewhat more ambiguous, if desired! Since the database classifies some events (particularly in the MonkeyCantab_IndividualEvents table) as being "correct" if they lead to reward and "incorrect" if they lead to punishment, choose here whether this reinforcer should be considered (for this purpose) a "reward" - if not, it will be considered a "punishment". This option has no impact on the operation of actual tasks, just the data-recording features. |
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