All images on this site are protected under copyright law. They may be downloaded for personal use only. You may not use them in any project, profit or non-profit, without prior permission. Please contact us if you wish to use any of these images.

Laboratory of Neurobiology

www.vislab.ucl.ac.uk

Cogent

The Cogent project was started in 1995. The aim was to develop a computer package that could be used by a novice researcher in the FIL to design experimental stimuli for brain imaging and psychophysical studies. In 1999-2002 this package was completely rewritten as a collaborative project involving the LON, FIL and ICN to provide PC compatibility, with greatly improved visual graphic capability.

Cogent has now been made freely available to the wider scientific community via this web distribution. We do however request that you comply with some simple conditions and that you provide us with some basic details so that we can monitor how Cogent is being distributed. Your details will be covered by the Data Protection Act 1998 and will not be given to any third party.

Cogent is available in two forms:

Cogent Graphics, developed at the LON, is a graphics toolbox for MATLAB on the PC. It can be used to generate realtime graphical animations for use as stimuli in vision research and to monitor subject input via keyboard and mouse.
Cogent 2000, developed at the FIL and the ICN, is a complete PC-based software environment for functional brain mapping experiments, containing commands useful for presenting scanner-synchronised visual stimuli (Cogent Graphics), auditory stimuli, mechanical stimuli, and taste and smell stimuli. It is also used in monitoring key presses and other physiological recordings from the subject.

Cogent Graphics is updated on a different schedule to Cogent 2000 and so you may want to check that you have the latest versions of these packages.

Latest news

Now available: The brain's specialized systems for aesthetic and perceptual judgments by Semir Zeki and Tomohiro Ishizu is now available under open access in the European Journal of Neuroscience.
Now available: Functional Specialization and Generalization for Grouping of Stimuli Based on Colour and Motion by Semir Zeki and Jonathan Stutters has been published in NeuroImage.
Now available: Splendors and Miseries of the Brain is now available in Greek.
19 April 2013: Semir Zeki will give a talk at the 10th International Cognitive Neurology Meeting which will be held in Istanbul, Turkey.
29 May 2013: Semir Zeki will give a talk at the Atena Onlus Conference in Rome, Italy.
8-12 July 2013: Semir Zeki will give a talk entitled The Objectivity of Subjective Truths at the 12th International AIC Congress at the The Sage, Gateshead, Newcastle.
6 February 2014: Semir Zeki will give the Sir Gordon Holmes lecture at the Royal Society of Medicine.