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==== Step 1: from zero to loading and plotting Emotiv data ==== === Installing MATLAB === Make sure you are on a Dartmouth network, such as Dartmouth Secure. Not KAF, Starbucks or eduroam. Then go [[https://caligari.dartmouth.edu/downloads/matlab/ | here]], click "Site License Downloads" and keep clicking the link at the bottom of the page until you get to the page for "R2014a": this is the version you want. Follow the instructions in the PDF. When the installation is done, see if you can run MATLAB. You should be faced with a screen containing a bunch of windows, including one called "Command Prompt" containing ''>>''. If your MATLAB runs, great! Now decide if you'd rather: - Familiarize yourself with MATLAB first. Go [[http://ctnsrv.uwaterloo.ca/vandermeerlab/doku.php?id=analysis:rhythms#getting_started_with_matlab | here]]. - Dive right in, working with Emotiv data. Read on. === Obtaining some sample Emotiv data === Click [[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzgbmK-cayRETEs2LVlwU0tHQzg/view?usp=sharing | here]]. Move this file to a location that shows you are careful with how you handle data. Something like ''\Documents\PSYC50\Data\TestData'' is a good choice, because it is clearly named and anticipates that you may have other data in the future beyond the file you grabbed just now. Something like ''\Downloads'' or ''\Desktop'' is bad because it'll get mixed in with lots of other files and maybe get deleted accidentally. Notice that this file has the extension ''.edf''. File extensions typically tell you about what **type** of file you are dealing with. In this case, our filetype is "EDF" (meaning it contains data arranged according the rules laid out in the [[http://www.edfplus.info/ | European Data Format specification]], which you can be happily ignorant about). All this means for you is that you need a file loader that can accept files of the EDF format, such as the one introduced in the next section. === Obtaining the code you need to load the Emotiv data === Pick one: the quick way, or the future-proof way. The quick way: download the MATLAB loader (from [[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mvdm/PSYC50Rhythms/master/emotiv-loading/edfread.m | here]]), and place it in a sensible location like ''\Documents\PSYC50\Code\Loading''. This will work for now. However, if you ever want to access an updated version of this file, or other code that I put up for use in the course, you'll have to do more downloading. The future-proof way, below, addresses this. The future-proof way: I have added the code you'll need for loading EDF data, as well as for doing some other things, on a "GitHub repository". ''Git'' is a system for "distributed version control": put simply, a way to collaborate on a set of files that makes it easy to share and receive updates to those files. ''GitHub'' is a website that hosts those files in a convenient place so that the ''Git'' software can do its job. Let's make sure you have Git on your computer. If you are a Mac user, you should already have git installed. Open up a Terminal, and type ''git'' to verify that your computer recognizes it. If you are on Windows, I recommend you download the [[https://desktop.github.com/ | GitHub desktop]]. Then, open a "Git shell" (you should have an icon and start menu item) and type ''git'' to check this command is recognized. In your terminal/shell, navigate to a good place to put your %%GitHub%% code. === First steps: loading, plotting ===