Stimulation based epoching

Summary

• Plugin name : Stimulation based epoching
• Version : 2.0
• Author : Jozef Legeny
• Company : Mensia Technologies
• Short description : Slices signal into chunks of a desired length following a stimulation event.
• Documentation template generation date : Jan 9 2018

Description

Slices signal into chunks of a desired length following a stimulation event.

The aim of this box it to select some signal near a specific event. The event is sent to the box in the form of an OpenViBE Stimulation. The author can configure the duration of the selected signal and the offset of this selection as regarding to the stimulation. For instance, it is possible to start the selection a few hundreds of milliseconds after the event, or even a few hundreds of milliseconds before the event.

Inputs

1. Input signal

This input should receive the signal that contains the epoch to extract. It is possible to pass either continuous signal or discontinuous signal. However, it is good to know how it is expected to work before trying to connect discontinuous signal.

• Type identifier : Signal (0x5ba36127, 0x195feae1)

2. Input stimulations

This input should receive the stimulation that triggers a new epoching. Any stimulation other than the one specified in the settings will be silently ignored.

• Type identifier : Stimulations (0x6f752dd0, 0x082a321e)

Outputs

1. Epoched signal

This output will send the selected epochs of signal. This output stream is discontinuous by design meaning that successive epochs are not connected in time. It is possible to later re-epoch the output signals if needed.

• Type identifier : Signal (0x5ba36127, 0x195feae1)

Settings

1. Epoch duration (in sec)

This setting defines the duration of the selected epoch (in seconds). For instance, if you want to select 600ms of signal, you should enter 0.6

• Type identifier : Float (0x512a166f, 0x5c3ef83f)
• Default value : [ 1 ]

2. Epoch offset (in sec)

This setting defines the offset of the epoch as against the stimulation date. This is where the selection starts. If this offset is greater than 0, then the signal selection starts after the actual stimulation. If this offset is less than 0, then the signal selection starts before the actual stimulation. Refer to Miscellaneous for more detailed examples

• Type identifier : Float (0x512a166f, 0x5c3ef83f)
• Default value : [ 0.5 ]

3. Stimulation to epoch from

This setting defines the stimulation identifier which should trigger a new epoching. Each time this stimulation is received, a new epocher starts and a new epoch should be sent.

• Type identifier : Stimulation (0x2c132d6e, 0x44ab0d97)
• Default value : [ OVTK_StimulationId_Label_00 ]

Examples

In the case of motor imagery, the user is usually instructed to imagine either left or right hand movement. This mental task typically runs for 5 seconds. So selecting the signal block related to the imagination of left hand movement can be done with this box using the following parameters :

• duration : 5 seconds
• offset : 0 second
• stimulation : OVTK_GDF_Left

In case you'd want to avoid the first half second (because it could reflect a phase where the user is starting to perform the task) and wand to avoir the last half second (because it could reflect a phase where the user is exhausted and does not perform the taks optimally), then you could use the following parameters :

• duration : 4 seconds
• offset : 0.5 seconds
• stimulation : OVTK_GDF_Left

Miscellaneous

1. Continuous signal

Suppose that we want to grab 1 second of signal following a specific stimulation code. Suppose that the actual stimulation happens at t=3.5 and t=6. Then the following figure illustrate how epochs will be built. (Ix represents the xth input epoch and Ox represents the xth output epoch)

         +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+
input  = | I1 | | I2 | | I3 | | I4 | | I5 | | I6 | | I7 | | I7 | | I9 | ...
         +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+
                                +----+           +----+
output =                        | O1 |           | O2 |                 ...
                                +----+           +----+

time   =      1      2      3      4      5      6      7      8      9
stim   =                        ^                ^

Suppose that we want to grab 3 seconds of signal beginning 1 second before a specific stimulation code. Suppose that the actual stimulation happens at t=1.5 and t=6. Then the following figure illustrate how epochs will be built. (Ix represents the xth input epoch and Ox represents the xth output epoch)

         +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+
input  = | I1 | | I2 | | I3 | | I4 | | I5 | | I6 | | I7 | | I7 | | I9 | ...
         +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+
           +------------------+           +------------------+
output =   |        O1        |           |        O2        |          ...
           +------------------+           +------------------+

time   =      1      2      3      4      5      6      7      8      9
stim   =          ^                              ^

Overlapping epochs would also work as defined on the following example... Suppose that we want to grab 3 seconds of signal beginning 1 second before a specific stimulation code. Suppose that the actual stimulation happens at t=1.5, t=2 and t=6. Then the following figure illustrate how epochs will be built. (Ix represents the xth input epoch and Ox represents the xth output epoch)

         +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+
input  = | I1 | | I2 | | I3 | | I4 | | I5 | | I6 | | I7 | | I7 | | I9 | ...
         +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+
           +------------------+           +------------------+
           |        O1        |           |        O3        |
output =   +------------------+           +------------------+          ....
              +------------------+
              |        O2        |
              +------------------+

time   =      1      2      3      4      5      6      7      8      9
stim   =          ^  ^                           ^

2. Discontinuous signal

The case where input signal is not continuous (for instance, the signal has already been epoched with either a Stimulation based epoching or a Time based epoching box) can be tricky... Indeed, it is not possible to join input epochs correctly. The epoching only consists in signal extraction from an individual input chunk.

For instance, suppose the following input signal (Ix represents the xth input epoch) :

         +------------------+        +------------------+        +-----
input  = |        I1        |        |        I2        |        |      ...
         +------------------+        +------------------+        +-----
time   =      1      2      3      4      5      6      7      8      9

Suppose that we want to grab 1 second of signal following a specific stimulation code. Suppose that the actual stimulation happens at t=1, t=2, t=4.5 and t=6.5. Then the following figure illustrate how epochs will be built. (Ix represents the xth input epoch and Ox represents the xth output epoch)

         +------------------+        +------------------+        +-----
input  = |        I1        |        |        I2        |        |      ...
         +------------------+        +------------------+        +-----
              +----+ +----+            +----+
output =      | O1 | | O2 |            | O3 |                           ...
              +----+ +----+            +----+

time   =      1      2      3      4      5      6      7      8      9
stim   =      ^      ^                 ^             ^

In this case, note that the last stimulation at t=6.5 can not generate a valid epoch. Indeed, the input signal does not cover the time period from t=6.5 to t=7.5 so no epoch should be generated.