Our mock scanner is designed to provide participants an experience similar to what they will experience in the real scanner. It has a moving table, a realistic head coil, visual and audio stimulus capabilities and a set of button boxes for participant response. There is also a TR pulse simulator so you can trigger your stimulus programs just like the scanner would. Scheduling for the simulator is available in Calpendo.
Operation of the simulator table is done with a simple two-switch system, one to turn on the system, the other to move the table in and out. The location of these controls is indicated by the red arrow on the picture of the mock scanner, above.
The table will automatically stop moving when it has reached the limits of its travel.
Visual stimuli are provided by an LG projector connected to a KVM switch. The switch is connected to a stimulus presentation computer on port two. Port one is available for your own laptop.
Visual Stimulus – Provided by a small projector, switchable between two different video sources.
The switch controls the source video signal (DVI) delivered to the projector as well as the computer that receives the USB signal from the Psychology Software Tools button box system.
Audio simulating magnet noise is delivered by either the mac mini or your own computer. A power amplifier drives the simulator’s built-in speaker system.
It is important that your stimulus programs respond properly to the trigger pulse sent by the scanner. To test this, you can use our pulse simulator, a small black box located next to the projector. The green light indicates a powered on condition. Press the button indicated by the red arrow to generate the pulse.
TR Pulse Simulator – Red arrow indicates the button used to generate a pulse.