Computer programming for cognitive scientists

2014 Spring

Dates: 13 and 27 January, 10 and 24 February, 10 and 24 March. From 9 am to 12.30 pm, on all occasions.

Location: TBA

If you want to bring your notebook to the class, and you use Windows, then before the first class you could check whether Labirint can run on your machine. See Software section below for more details.

Course description

The course will introduce you to the very basic technics of computer programming. The examples will focus on experimenting, data analysis and modelling. The course supposes that you haven't learned any programming before. By the end of the course most probably you'll be able to modify scripts, build simple experimenting paradigms with bearable pain.

Topics

Many of the slides are in Hungarian at the moment. By the time of the classes, the relevant slides will be available in English.

• • Introduction to computer programming

    • Scracth and Labirint - a gentle introduction for newcomers

      • Download Labirint. Slides.

    • Introduction to programming - the example of Matlab

      • Download Octave. Slides and more slides and even more.

  • Experimenting

    • General viewpoints of computer based experimenting

      • Slides.

    • Psychtoolbox

      • Download Psychtoolbox. Slides

Software

There will be some desktop computers with appropriate Matlab licences available. But if you want, you can use your own notebook. We'll use the following programs:

• • On the first occasion we'll use Labirint, a DOS(!) program.

  • On some Windows machines it is impossible to run it. So you can try to run it at home before the first class, to make sure that it'll work on your computer. Or you can use DOSBox to run it with some limitations.

    • Linux users can run it from DOSEMU (DOSBox will not work correctly).

  • If you have appropriate Matlab licenc, it is fine. If you don't, you can install Octave, a free Matlab clone, that will be also fine for the course.

  • We'll also use Psychtoolbox.

Ubuntu and Debian based Linux users might want to add the NeuroDebian repository to install and update scientific software easier.

Requirements

No requirements are set for this course, we'll do it just for fun. However, you'll get several homework to practice and extend what we learn during the classes.