An Introduction to MATLAB for Behavioral Researchers / Edition 1

by Christopher R. Madan

Overview

MATLAB is a powerful data analysis program, but many behavioral science researchers find it too daunting to learn and use. An Introduction to MATLAB for Behavioral Researchers by Christopher R. Madan is an easy-to-understand, hands-on guide for behavioral researchers who have no prior programming experience. Written in a conversational and non-intimidating style, the author walks students—step by step—through analyzing real experimental data. Topics covered include the basics of programming, the implementation of simple behavioral analyses, and how to make publication-ready figures. More advanced topics such as pseudo-randomization of trial sequences to meet specified criteria and working with psycholinguistic data are also covered. Interesting behavioral science examples and datasets from published studies, such as visualizing fixation patterns in eye-tracking studies and animal search behavior in two-dimensional space, help develop an intuition for data analysis, which is essential and can only be developed when working with real research problems and real data.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452255408
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	12/18/2013
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	7.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Dr. Christopher Madan is an Assistant Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Nottingham. He studies memory using a combination of cognitive psychology, neuroimaging, and computational modeling methods. He is particularly interested in factors makes some experiences more memorable than others (such as emotion, reward, and motor processing) and how these influences can manifest in future behavior, such as decision making. He also specializes in characterizing inter-individual differences in brain structure, particularly with respect to aging, dementia, and cognitive abilities. He has written several textbooks, including An Introduction to Matlab for Behavioural Researchers (2014, Sage Publications) and Memories that Matter: How we remember important things (2022, Routledge). Dr. Madan received a 2021 Early Career Award from the Psychonomic Society and a 2017 Rising Star award from the Association for Psychological Science. He is a Fellow of the Psychonomic Society and Advance HE and has been elected to the membership of the Memory Disorders Research Society.

Table of Contents

1. The Basics
2. Data, Meet MATLAB
3. Basic Analyses
4. Making Figures
5. Automating Your Analyses
6. Debug and Optimize
7. Elementary Statistics
8. Putting it All Together
9. The Final Chapter

Editorial Reviews

This is definitely one of the better MATLAB textbooks that I have seen out there.

Thomas Serre