Proteus Session limits

[tomswgc]

Hello Andy, Is there any way we can create segments shorter than 0.5 seconds in Proteus session editor?. It would be great if you have a patch or anything like that. Thanks.

[Andy]

I wrote a manual editor at one time either for the Proteus or Procyon that allowed ranges outside what the editor allowed. I'll have to look back and see.

[tomswgc]

Thanks Andy, If you do find it please let me know.

[Andy]

Yeah, sorry - it was a Procyon editor, not Proteus.

[Andy]

Also, it looks like the minimum time recommended is 0.5 by design.

[Robert Austin]

It is correct that the shortest segment that the Proteus can generate is 0.5 seconds long, with small roundoff errors due to the use of integer calculations. When we designed that system, our goal was maximum flexibility, within constraints, and there appeared to be few reasons to use such a short duration, while allowing shorter segments would have required another byte of precision in the calculations, which would have slowed the overall system sample rate (which derives, ultimately, from the audio sample rate) and overall performance.

The main reason we enabled such a short segment length was their potential use in variants of Dr. Tom Budzynski's 'Brain Brightening' investigations, which essentially involved broadband stimulation within a target range, in particular 13-22 Hz. Our initial investigations at SynchroMed utilized pseduo-random frequency hops within this range, initially 30 seconds per frequency, but the goal was to consider both longer and shorter stimulation periods. We created the 'randomize' function in the Proteus Editor to enable the creation of the full range of experimental paradigms, from very short to longer segments. We ran out of funding at SychroMed and so did not pursue this in-house, but Tom continued to self-fund research for several more years. The $2,000 pRoshi is apparently designed around the short/fast segment approach.

The Procyon uses a faster, more adept microcontroller, so we were able to push the minimum segment length to 0.2 seconds, which can produce some highly unusual results when pushed to the limits and looped. We also developed an experimental, alternative OS for the Procyon called MindBrite, which allows you to select a frequency range for each color channel, as well as other parameters, and generate a pseudo-random (as always...), complex sequence consisting of single flashes at each frequency within the specified range. That is, 10 hz, 20 hz, 5 hz would be reflected in the chain of flashes (100 ms, 50 ms, 200 ms), though actual sequences would tend to be far more complex.

We haven't specifically discussed the creation of such sessions in the Kasina, but I would assume that judicious use of Mind Workstation's engines and/or templates could effect the same results.