An IBM-PC Based Data Collection System for ... - Science Direct

Physiology & Behavior, Vol. 44, pp. 825--828.Copyright©Pergamon Press plc, 1988. Printed in the U.S.A.

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BRIEF COMMUNICATION

An IBM-PC Based Data Collection System for Recording Rodent Sexual Behavior and for General Event Recording GREGORY

M. H O L M E S , *l D I A N A G. H O L M E S t z A N D B E N J A M I N

D. S A C H S *

*Department o f Psychology, University o f Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269 and tPrime Computer Company, Prime Park, Natick, M A 01760 R e c e i v e d 22 F e b r u a r y 1988 HOLMES, G. M., D. G. HOLMES AND B. D. SACHS. An IBM-PC based data collection system for recording rodent sexual behavior andfor general event recording. PHYSIOL BEHAV 44(6) 825--828, 1988.-A microcomputer (IBM-PC) based data collection system for the acquisition and analysis of male rodent copulatory behavior and its reflexive components has been developed. This software features ease of data entry, flexibility across experimental protocols, and built-in tutorials. The program for the recording and analysis of sexual reflexes of the male is readily adapted for recording other behavior patterns. IBM-microcomputer

Event recording

Male sexual behavior

S E V E R A L computer programs have been developed for the acquisition and partial analysis of the copulatory behavior of male rodents (2, 4, 5). Some of these programs had restrictions that made them incompatible with widely used IBM and compatible computer hardware or with experimental protocols for the analysis of copulatory behavior of rats and other species. F o r example, due to differences in the copulatory behavior between mice and rats, the programs devised by Rakerd et al. (5) for use with mice do not include all the variables necessary for investigations of copulatory behavior in rats and other rodents. We have extensively modified their original program to accommodate these additional variables while maintaining the data structure and format of the original programs. An event-recording program was also developed for recording other behavior, using a data structure compatible with that of the copulatory behavior package. Our goal was to develop a program which preserved the simplicity and flexibility of conventional (e.g., Esterline Angus) event recorders, yet took full advantage o f the processing capabilities inherent to microcomputers. This program was designed for recording and analyzing penile reflexes (1), yet

Rodents

it is flexible enough to be used in recording other diverse behaviors such as autogrooming (6) and female pacing of copulation. The program can also be easily modified by the user with the aid of a program which redefines the keyboard or the numeric keypad alone. This procedure allows for recording of several subjects at once (e.g., male and female behaviors in a paced copulation setting). Each program comes with an online, menu-driven, tutorial which instructs the viewer on how to run the program. In addition, a program was also developed for converting data files into an ASCII format compatible with commercial statistics packages capable of addressing pure ASCII files. METHOD

Hardware These programs were developed for use on an IBM-PC or IBM compatible with 512K RAM. The IBM-PC comes equipped with a clock and a standard keyboard with built in numeric keypad, and two 360K disk drives (5.25-in., double-sided, double-density diskettes). It is important to note that the user programmability of either package allows

~Requests for reprints should be addressed to G. M. Holmes, Department of Psychology, U-20, The University of Connecticut. 406 Babbidge Road, Storrs, CT 06269. Requests for working copies and source code of the program should be accompanied by two formatted, double-sided, double-density 5J/4-inch diskettes and an addressed cardboard mailer for returning the diskettes. 2Current address: Banyan Systems Incorporated, 115 Fianders Road, Westboro, MA 01581.

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HOLMES, HOLMES AND SACHS FILE NAME - C:EXAMPLE .DAT STARTING D~TE = 08-04-1988 O B S E R V E R #I = H O L M E S / 09:03:43 / STARTING TIME = 09:03:21 O B S E R V E R #2 = H O L M E S / / SYSTEM TIME = 9:17:22 O B S E R V E R #3 = S A C H S / / .............................................................................. CAGE

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