Collecting and Analyzing Behavioral and Neural Data

Overview

In this chapter, we take up the important topic of data analysis. Using classical eyeblink conditioning as a model behavioral system, in this chapter we discuss how behavioral and neural data are typically analyzed after the data have been collected. For this discussion, we assume that the behavioral and neural data have been stored to a computer in some form (more on the use of the computer to control stimuli and collect data is presented in Chapter 11). A tacit assumption we also have, of course, is that all of the equipment involved in the data collection process is working properly. After all, the quality of data stored in the computer is determined, for the most part, by the quality of the components of the equipment that records and feeds the data to the computer. In writing this chapter, we have borrowed extensively from a couple of two-part papers that Gould, Sears and Steinmetz (1991 a and b) and Katz and Steinmetz (1995 a and b) wrote for the Kopf Carrier, a publication that is distributed to the general neuroscience community by David Kopf Instruments (Tujunga, CA).