Stimulus Playlists

Playlists define the trial-level output for the DAQ service. They are tab-delimited text files.

Playlist Format

The parser expects these columns in this order:

stimFileName	silencePre	silencePost	intensity	freq

Example:

stimFileName

silencePre

silencePost

intensity

freq

superstimulus.wav

1000

1000

1.0

100

SIN_100_0_3000

1000

1000

1.0

100

[PUL_5_10_10_0, SIN_200_0_2000]

1000

1000

1.0

100

[SIN_100_0_3000, SIN_200_0_2000]

[1000, 2000]

[2000, 1000]

[1.0, 2.0]

[100, 200]

Column meanings:

  • stimFileName: WAV/HDF5 stimulus filename or a generated stimulus name.

  • silencePre: Silence before the stimulus, in milliseconds.

  • silencePost: Silence after the stimulus, in milliseconds.

  • intensity: Output multiplier. For calibrated sounds or LEDs, use the unit convention established by the rig calibration.

  • freq: Key into the attenuation table in ethoconfig.yml.

Each row defines one trial and the whole playlist is repeated until the experiment finishes. The order of the trials can be specified in the protocol section, via the shuffle parameter for the associated DAQ service:

  • shuffle: False: Trials run in order as per the playlist (default).

  • shuffle: True: Trials are block randomized.

The trial duration is silencePre, plus the longest stimulus across output channels, plus silencePost. Shorter output channels are zero-padded to match the longest channel.

Multi-Channel Stimulation

For multi-channel output, write list values in brackets:

[stim_on_chan1, stim_on_chan2, stim_on_chan3]

Channel order follows the DAQ protocol: analog outputs first, then digital outputs. For example, if the protocol defines two analog outputs and one digital output, the playlist order is:

[first_analog_output, second_analog_output, digital_output]

Other columns may also use bracketed lists, such as [1.0, 0.5] for channel-specific intensity. If a list has fewer entries than stimFileName, the last provided value is repeated for the remaining channels.

Generated Stimulus Names

Stimulus names can point to files in stimfolder, or they can request generated signals:

  • SIN_frequency_phase_duration: Generate a sine wave. Frequency is in Hz, phase is in radians, and duration is in milliseconds.

  • PUL_pulseDur_pulsePau_pulseNumber_pulseDelay: Generate a pulse train. Time fields are in milliseconds.

  • CLOCK_pulseDur_pulsePau: Generate a continuous clock signal for the full trial.

  • SI_START: Set the channel high for the first samples of a trial to start ScanImage acquisition.

  • SI_STOP: Set the channel high near the end of the final trial to stop ScanImage acquisition.

  • SI_NEXT: Set the channel high near the end of each trial to advance ScanImage files.

CLOCK, SI_START, SI_STOP, and SI_NEXT are aligned to the trial edges, not to silencePre or silencePost.