MATLAB
MATLAB is a programming environment widely used in research and industry for matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementation of algorithms, creation of user interfaces, and interfacing with programs written in other languages. In psychology research it is also used to control experimental hardware and to collect and display data.
Faculty, students and staff may license MATLAB for use on their computers. If MATLAB needs to be installed on a lab computer, please put in a request to psychtech@ithelp.uoregon.edu so that PsychIT can help with licensing.
The licensing with MathWorks for MATLAB is negotiated by Central IT every September. This can cause invonvenient licensing notices to be generated by MATLAB throughout the weeks leading up to the current year's license's expiration. Where possible, it is advisable to plan research around any gap between the time the old license expires and MATLAB ceases to function and the begin of a new licesning cycle (this may awkwardly occur during early October).
Additionally, as new licenses for MATLAB are negotiated, it may transpire that older versions of MATLAB are not able to communicate with MATLAB's licensing server or require a manual insertion of activation codes into MATLAB's utility files. This will become more of an issue on legacy computers needed to run the PsychToolbox module.
Before You Install
MATLAB should run on most computers built after 2005. MathWorks suggests that machines running MATLAB have 2 megabytes (MB) of RAM. Hardware requirements may be found here: http://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab/requirements.html. It requires a CPU with the SSE2 instruction set, which newer machines have (see http://www.mathworks.com/support/solutions/en/data/1-B3MR75/ for more information)
MATLAB comes in a wide array of versions. To choose the right version for your research needs, be sure to answer the following questions:
MATLAB is a large software package; a high-speed internet connection will shorten the installation time -- depending on the computer's CPU speed and the internet connection speed, installation can take anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes.
Be sure to have the UO site license number handy. It may be obtained via Central IT's software center web page: http://it.uoregon.edu/software/matlab.
Download and Install
Additional MATLAB Resources
2007 course notes for Ione Fine's "MATLAB for the Behavioral Sciences: How to program your own experiment" are located here: http://faculty.washington.edu/ionefine/MatlabCourseNotes07.html The last half of these notes address specific issues within PsychToolBox.
PsychToolBox
Some researchers use a component of MATLAB called PsychToolBox. PsychToolBox is a collection of programs used to display visual stimuli. As of September 1, 2011, PsychToolBox will only run with the 32-bit version of MATLAB.
Be sure to confirm that your computer equipment is able to run PsychToolBox: http://psychtoolbox.org/wikka.php?wakka=SystemRequirements before installing. For example, newer versions of MATLAB are 64-bit, and so do not support running PsychToolBox. PsychToolBox uses hardware in particular ways and not all hardware is compatible.
PsychToolBox may be downloaded from http://psychtoolbox.org/wikka.php?wakka=HomePage
Additional PsychToolBox Resources
John Burridge, Web Communications Technician ⚣ he/him/his
University of Oregon, Robert D. Clark Honors College
M-F: 8AM-Noon, 1PM-3PM burridge@uoregon.edu http://pages.uoregon.edu/burridge