Centre for Applied Psychological Research

Electroencephalography (EEG)

Made by market leaders EGI, the EEG system captures patterns of brain activity by capturing electrical fluctuations from electrodes placed on the scalp. It is a non-invasive cap that is worn over the head and is connected to a specialist amp which communicates with a dedicated Apple Mac Pro running the latest Netstation software.

The 256 channels of data being recorded allows researchers to explore a range of activity, from simple eye blinks through to the complex communication of information across the cortex. We also have a smaller 14-channel EEG set for use with video gaming and the Oculus Rift immersive virtual experience.

Oculus Rift

The Oculus Rift creates a fully immersive virtual reality experience. A head tracking system allows users to turn 360⁰ in the virtual world, peer around corners and duck below approaching objects. The technology becomes even more powerful when combined with a game pad, mouse, or Leap Motion for interacting with the virtual world.

The Rift can be set up to work with our 14-channel EEG to collect brain electrical activity. A 5.1 surround sound speaker system can be used to develop a suitable soundscape for your virtual environment and create a truly immersive experience, or link with our steering wheel and foot pedals to simulate the experience of driving.

Our Psychology Technicians are continually developing new VR experiences and games, covering fears and phobias, relaxation, flight and racing simulation, and more.

Cold Pressor

The Cold Pressor is a water bath that creates and maintains a constant temperature. The water is circulated through a refrigeration unit to keep it at a constant temperature set by the researcher. Participants place their hand into the water bath and complete other tasks or view stimuli presented to them. It is often used to study pain tolerance and perseverance.

SMI RED 250 Eye tracker

A desktop mounted eye tracker allows for a non-invasive measure of how people attend to the environment. Gaze position and duration is a surprisingly reliable indicator of what people are thinking about and to what degree of effort.

The SMI RED 250 samples gaze 250 times each second. Attached to a 22” monitor, stimuli are presented using experimental software or code. The BeGaze analysis software creates heat maps indicating areas of particular interest and offers metrics of fixations and saccades (eye movements).

Biopac System

A set of 28 Biopac systems are available in the Department of Psychology, allowing for large volumes of data to be collected quickly. Using the Biopac Student Lab and Student Lab Pro will give new users an opportunity to discover more about the psychological insights that can be gained from biophysiological measures. It is also a popular piece of equipment with final year dissertation students.

The Biopac can capture many biophysiological behaviours such as galvanic skin response, heart rate, pulse, and breathing metrics. The kit can be used in conjunction with StimTracker to give precise event codes for the onset of stimuli.

LX5000 Polygraph System

The LX5000 computerised polygraph by Lafayette Instruments captures heart rate, breathing, galvanic skin response and blood pressure. When combined with the subject’s chair, arm torso and leg movements can be recorded. The Masseter Headphone system will additionally monitor jaw, tongue and clenching of teeth.

The validity of the polygraph is the subject of intense scientific debate. Our system allows staff and students to robustly test scientific claims made of the system. Such systems are less controversially used to detect concealed information using the Concealed Information Test, or CIT.

Kinect Body Motion Capture

Capturing bodily movement with a high degree of accuracy has typically meant participants having to wear some form of kit, which can be unpleasant, invasive, and make the participant highly aware of the tracking equipment. The Microsoft Xbox One Kinect may seem like an unusual choice for gathering research data, but Microsoft have produced a system capable of tracking bodily motion to a high degree of accuracy with minimal setup required of the participant while passively sat at a distance, non-invasively recording behaviour.

Linked to a Windows machine, the information captured by the Kinect is read and stored using bespoke code to sample the position of bodily joints 500 times per second. The kit can also capture the bodily motion of two people simultaneously, allowing for exploration of bodily motion and synchronicity in dyadic interactions.

Recon Jet Pro Smart Glasses

The hands-free wearable device delivers smartphone-class capabilities direct to the participant’s gaze to augment reality. The glasses have Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS technology, and a point-of-view camera enables see-what-I-see video calls and video capture.

The kit offers the possibility of studying ergonomics and human factors, information processing during action and motion, and more.

Leap Motion

A hand motion controller for Windows and Oculus Rift, the device allows a user to interact with a PC or virtual world using only the motion of one’s hands. The device is smaller than a matchbox and can be placed below a computer monitor or attached to the front of the Oculus Rift for hand movement capture.

Green Screen Technology

A lit green screen studio allows for film or photography to be edited post production to remove or replace the background. This is useful for creating controlled stimuli (for example, placing the same objects into a different scene, or manipulating the context and setting in which an interview takes place) and developing training or teaching materials (for example, adding video and text surrounding actors in a scene).

Additional Research Equipment

The following resources are also available to staff and students.

• MP3 recorders
• Laptops for experiments that require some portability
• Three HD video cameras
• Games consoles (Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii with light gun, Playstation 2 and 3, Nintendo Gamecube) with games that have a violence theme
• OMRON Blood Pressure Monitor
• Aftershokz Sportz Titanium bone conducting headphones for delivering audio through cheekbones to allow other sounds to be attended to simultaneously.

Software Resources

Below are some of the resources that are available. If you have need of other software, please contact our Psychology Technicians, who will be able to advise.

• Superlab Pro: Create experiments using a range of input and output devices.
• Eprime: Create experiments that link with other hardware and software.
• SPSS: Statistical package for analysis.
• Virtual Rat: A computer rodent allowing for replication of learning and reward experiments.
• Facegen: Generate face stimuli that control variables such as gender, skin colour, mouth size, and more.
• Netstation: Records and analyses data from EEG nets.
• Observer XT: Video coding software that can be integrated with the eye tracker, EEG and FaceReader.
• FaceReader 7: An array of lights and camera to map a participant’s face and capture emotional displays.
• NVivo: Qualitative data coding program.
• MATLAB: Programming environment for experiment creation and data manipulation.
• NodeXL Prof: Add-in for MS Excel that supports social network and content analysis.