# Define the behaviors that you want to record manually

Prerequisite

Think in advance how the different categories of behavior relate to each other. You may for example want to score different types of grooming (Unilateral stroke, Bilateral stroke etc.). Each type will be a behavior, however these are best organized in a group. If you plan to score behaviors that do not relate to each other (for example Rearing and Drinking), they do not need to be defined in a group.

Procedure

1.Choose Setup > Manual Scoring Settings, or in the Experiment Explorer, click Manual Scoring Settings.

2.Click the Add Behavior button or press Ctrl+B. The Add Behavior window appears.

3.Next to Behavior name, enter the name to the behavioral category you want to score. For example, Follow, or Bite.

4.Next to Behavior type, choose the type of behavior. This choice affects how you score the behavior relative to others. See Behavior types

5.If in the previous step you have chosen Mutually-exclusive, then the Behavior group list becomes available. Type in the name of the group the behavior belongs to, or, if you have already defined it, select it from the list.

If you have chosen Start-Stop or Point event, the behavior cannot be part of any group, and therefore the Behavior group list is not available. Go to the next step.

6.Enter a Description (optional) for the behavior.

7.If you think that the behavior is active at the start of the trial, select the Initially active option.

8.Click OK. The behavior is listed in the table, under the group it belongs to.

9.In the cell under Keys, select the keyboard key that you want to use for scoring that behavior. See Choose the keys for coding

Behavior types

Mutually exclusive

The behavior will be part of a group, where one item, when scored, automatically switches off the item currently active. For example, you define a group of two behaviors, Rearing and No Rearing. When the subject shows rearing, score this behavior. Rearing is now active. As the subject stops rearing, score No rearing. This state is now active, while Rearing is stopped automatically.

Within a mutually-exclusive group, only one behavior can be defined as initially active. If one of the behaviors of a Mutually-exclusive group is already selected as Initially active and you check the same option in the Add Behavior window for a second behavior, the program asks you whether you want to remove that option for the first behavior. Click Yes to do so. If you click No, you return to the dialog, so you can clear the Initially active option.

In the Dependent variable plots, a mutually-exclusive group of behaviors would look like this:

Start-Stop

Scoring that behavior is fully independent of other behaviors. To stop that behavior you must press the Stop key.

In the Dependent variable plots, a Start-stop behavior would look like this:

Point event

With this option you only score a point of time when the behavior occurs. Choose this option when you only want to measure the frequency, not the duration of the behavior. Typical examples of such behaviors are biting and twitching.

In the Dependent variable plots, a Point event would look like this:

Choose the keys for coding

▪It is not required to use key codes. You can also score events using the mouse.

▪Choose keys that you can press without taking your eyes off the keyboard (for example A, S, D) rather than keys which are easy to remember. If your scoring settings contain so many behaviors that you cannot remember the keys, it is probably too complex.

▪For each cell you can enter one key, among those available a...z, and 0...9.

▪If your setup includes multiple subjects and arenas, choose a key for each arena-subject-behavior combination.

▪For Start-Stop behaviors, choose a key to Start the behavior and a key to stop it. You can also define the same key for starting and stopping it.

▪Only the keys available are listed, not those already in use. For Start-Stop behaviors, you can select the same key for both starting and stopping a behavior.

Notes

▪For mutually-exclusive behaviors, It is always a good idea to define a default behavior that can be scored when the subject does not show any significant behaviors. Choose this behavior as Initially active.

▪Names of groups and start-stop behaviors are displayed in a gray row. Names of mutually-exclusive behaviors are displayed in a white row under the corresponding group name.

▪Behavior names and group names must be no more than 64 characters long. The characters you use, must be Unicode characters in the Basic Multilingual Plane range. See the following web page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_(Unicode)#Basic_Multilingual_Plane

▪How many behaviors? You can define as many behaviors as you need. However, since the number of available keys is 36, we advise you to limit the number of arena-subject-behavior combinations to 36, so you can assign a keyboard key to a behavior of a specific subject in a specific arena. If you need to define more combinations, do so without assigning a key code. You can score those behaviors by clicking the corresponding button on the acquisition screen.

When you need to score behaviors live, keep the scoring settings as simple as possible, with few behaviors. If you try to score many complex behaviors at once then you may make mistakes.

See also

▪Score behaviors manually

▪Analyze a Manually scored behavior

▪Export manually-scored behaviors to The Observer XT