Direct RT

[e.beatrice]

To whom it may concern,

I am currently a research assistant in a Human Factors Psychology lab, and we are trying to use Direct RT in our research. My professor and I, were wondering if there was any way to get a signal from the foot panel of our driving simulator to the software? Any advice or answers you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time.

[jarvis24]

How does you foot pedal connect and what kind of data does it send?

[DW2011]

It is a logitech wheel with a foot pedal, please see the attached picture for more information. It is connected to the computer with a USB connector.

When it is connected with a PC to play a game, you can get all driving related information, speed, degree of wheel turning, pressure on the foot pedal and break pedal, left/right light on, etc.

--Deb

[JEC]

It's possible that DirectRT may recognize this controller as a joystick. If that's true, you'll have no problem using it in your experiment.

[DW2011]

That is great. Just want to be more specific. Can I get the break information from the foot pedal? For example, display a signal on the screen, and press the gas pedal in response to the signal. The measure we want to collect is the RT in response to the signal by pressing the gas pedal.

Thank you.

[JEC]

Just curious - I know some time has passed, but did you have any results with your driving simulator?

[DW2011]

There is a problem about how to connect the logitech wheel/foot pedal set with the computer. DirectRT can get the signal via the serial or parallel port (COM), but the output from logitech is via a USB key. I try to find a adapter to convert the USB output to a serial port output, but no this kind of adapter in market. Any suggestions?

Thanks

[JEC]

The system might be recognized by your computer as a regular joystick. If that's the case, both MediaLab and DirectRT can accept its input. You're correct, though, that there's not a practical way to convert the USB output into either parallel or serial port information.