Measuring Behavior 2002: Lainson et al.

HyperTrack: a software package designed specifically for neuromuscular and motor control research in humans

A. Lainson, R.A. Lainson and Y.B. Gould

SDR Clinical Technology, Sydney, Australia

HyperTrack presents a tracking task in which a test subject attempts to control a response object so as to track a target object on a computer screen. The subject's input may be through a joystick or a large variety of other transducers or signals, which are captured through a Biopac data acquisition system (see Figures 1-3).

Figure 1. HyperTrack's main control panel.

Figure 2. HyperTrack's transform editor.

Figure 3. HyperTrack's filter editor.

While this sounds very simple, HyperTrack contains a number of sophisticated features to support detailed testing of non-trivial motor control models:

data acquisition of both tracking and incidental signals

flexible control of task presentation details, including multiple tasks in multiple modes

versatile specification of the task model, including signal tranformations and non-linear filtering

professional task presentation on another display or computer

easy data exchange with Matlab for data analysis

HyperTrack will be of interest to researchers investigating:

any detailed analysis of tracking performance

adaptation by subjects to dynamically changing tasks

adaptation by subjects to non-linear tasks

tracking with inputs other than hand control (e.g. EMG)

correlation of physiological parameters (e.g. EEG) during task tracking

As for system requirements, HyperTrack runs under Windows 98 or Windows 2000, and requires MP100WSW (Biopac).

HyperTrack was developed in collaboration with Prof. Peter Neilson, Associate Professor in Systems & Control, The University of New South Wales, Australia.

Paper presented at Measuring Behavior 2002 , 4^th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 27-30 August 2002, Amsterdam, The Netherlands