Task experiment data

Under construction

These pages are currently under construction.

Format summary

With task experiment we mean one of two BIDS data types. Purely behavioral task experiments should be stored as BIDS behavioral data with a beh subdirectory in the subject directories. Task experiments that were performed while recording time course data such as functional MRI or MEG data should be stored as event files along with the time course data. The organization of files as well as content is very similar between these cases.

Task data is stored in tabular files where every line represents an experimental event. Along such a tabular file there should be a sidecar .json file, which should describe the columns and values in the tabular file.

There are currently no additional requirements for task data specifically, but the general ANC requirement that all tabular file columns should be explained in a .json sidecar applies.

The columns and values are mainly decided by the data collector and depend on the kind of task experiment that was performed, but can contain information on what type event it is (e.g. a response or stimulus presentation), or the color of specific stimulus. Empty values in are normal (a response event does not have a value stimulus color) and should be marked with an n/a string in accordance with BIDS.

_events.tsv files should have at least an onset and duration column. The onset column should contain the onset of the described event relative to the onset of the collected time course data to support analysis.

Example continuous speech

Continuous speech .tsv fileContinuous speech .json file

onset	duration	sample	event_type	value	lip_file	speech_file
3.994	44.736	3994	forward	33	liparea_33.tsv	speech_env_33.tsv
50.606	43.6053	50606	backward	16	liparea_16.tsv	speech_env_16.tsv
96.585	49.7707	96585	backward	23	liparea_23.tsv	speech_env_23.tsv
147.784	45.76	147784	forward	41	liparea_41.tsv	speech_env_41.tsv

    {
        "event_type": {
            "Description": "Description for event_type",
            "HED": {
            "backward": "(Sensory-event, Visual-presentation, (Video-clip, (Human-agent),((Speak, Backward))))",
            "forward": "(Sensory-event, Visual-presentation, (Video-clip, (Human-agent),((Speak, Forward))))"
            },
            "Levels": {
            "backward": "videos presented in a reversed manner. Trigger values between [77, 88] or [13, 24]",
            "forward": "videos presented in a forward manner. Trigger values between [97, 108] or [33, 44]"
            }
        },
        "duration": {
            "Description": "duration of the stimulus in seconds (predefined by the stimulus--> convert into samplingpoints)"
        },
        "value": {
            "Description": "value that describes the video, that was presented and the event type"
        },
        "lip_file": {
            "Description": "filename of the lip-area extracted with the chimera toolbox"
        },
        "speech_file": {
            "Description": "Description for speech_file"
        },
        "sample": {
            "Description": "filename of the speech envelope"
        }
    }