MATLAB for Psychologists
The matrix laboratory interactive computing environment—MATLAB—has brought creativity to research in diverse disciplines, particularly in designing and programming experiments. More commonly used in mathematics and the sciences, it also lends itself to a
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Mauro Borgo Alessandro Soranzo Massimo Grassi ●
MATLAB for Psychologists
Mauro Borgo Via Marosticana 168 Dueville (VI), Italy
Alessandro Soranzo School of Social Science & Law University of Teesside Middlesbrough, UK
Massimo Grassi Department of General Psychology University of Padova Padova, Italy
ISBN 978-1-4614-2196-2 e-ISBN 978-1-4614-2197-9 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-2197-9 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2012931943 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
To my three women: my wife, Tatiana, my mother, Angelina, and my grandmother Emilia –Mauro Borgo To my father –Alessandro Soranzo To Viola and Ruggero –Massimo Grassi
Preface
Psychological researchers should possess several skills, and one of them is surely creativity. Creativity is needed at several key points of the research process, such as in creating experimental stimuli and planning and designing an experiment. Creativity drives good data analysis, so that numbers can reveal their full potential. Much of this creativity is now expressed through a computer program. For example, in planning and designing a psychological experiment and in analyzing data, we use specific software that has been dedicated to that particular job. This software might, however, be a hindrance to creativity, preventing it from permeating research. This is because in the majority of cases, software is designed to satisfy the average user and it is not flexible enough to meet specific needs. In this sense, MATLAB is exactly the other side of the coin. When we first open the software, the lack of a graphical interface may be frustrating: at a first glance, the program may seem difficult to use. This book is aimed at helping users in their first approaches to this software, to aid them in programming their psychological experiments and consequently in liberating their creativity. And this is MATLAB’s major advantage: we do not have to adapt our needs to the software; it is the software that adapts to our needs. MATLAB is an extremely powerful research tool. By means of this single software tool we can control every step of our research. We can create stimuli of any kind (e.g., pictures, sounds), and we can program psych
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