Developing a mobile phone application for visual stimulation
Visual systems play a vital role in guiding the behaviour of animals. Finding the visual cues that animals use to perform different tasks is, therefore, key to understand animal behaviour. In our lab we study the neuronal mechanism underlying crab escape behaviour. We record electrical signals from visual neurons in response to a range of stimuli to understand the relationship between neuronal responses and visual input. Our stimulation requires real-time and reliable presentation of a range of stimuli such as moving sinewave gratings and moving predators (represented by dots and bars). Currently, we use computer monitors and openGL software to present these stimuli. However, we are limited by the physical size, resolutions and design of computer monitors.
The purpose of this project is to design an application to use mobile phones/tablets to present visual stimuli to take advantage of their higher resolutions (pixels/mm) and more linear display technology (OLED). If possible, we would like to connect several mobile phones/tablets together to create a dome or cylinder around the animal. The visual stimuli could be videos preloaded onto the phones. However, the mobile phones should be able to communicate with a remote computer which can select a video on the phones in real time (and in a synchronised fashion in case of several phones). The main requirements for this application are reliable and real-time presentation of videos (no frame drop), ability to calibrate the intensity of screens, and full update of the screens in each displayed frame.
We will provide mobile phones/tablets and can contribute to the cost of the project.
Client
Contact Person: Dr Jan Hemmi, Dr Zahra Bagheri
Telephone: +61 8 6488 3117
Email: [email protected]
Preferred method of contact: email
Location: Zoology building room 1.08 Crawley
Client Unavailability
None
IP Exploitation Model
The client wishes to use a Creative Commons CC BY-NC model to deal with IP embodied in the project.