Over the past few years Matlab has become a standard research tool in the Psychology Department because of its versatility.

To name a few of its abilities, Matlab can:

• Restructure and reduce data
• Perform statistical and numerical data analysis
• Generate graphical representations and summaries
• Perform perceptual and behavioral experiments
• Model (physical, behavioral or neural) phenomena
• Interface with off-the-shelf and custom-built I/O hardware

Many students in the Psychology Department are required to learn and use Matlab for their classes and research. Some students having previous programming experience are able to teach it to themselves. However, many students with little or no prior programming experience need additional help. For the past 3 years, Matlab instruction and consulting has been provided to psychology students to meet this need.

In the summer of 2005, a free Matlab seminar was taught to graduate students in a lab in the clinical psychology program. In the summers of 2006 and 2007, a 20-hour summer course was developed, taught and archived online: kallie.org/matlab.

Presently, the contents of the original Matlab course are being translated into a self-guided online course, which is in development on this web site. By the end of this semester, the entire course contents will be translated into this self-guided online course. As consulting and instruction generate new topics, they will be added to the online course.

The old web site has examples for statistical analysis, graphing, importing/exporting formatted data, univariate and bivariate data analysis, regression and GUI programming. This site will include updated versions of all the old material, plus additional tools, including: multivariate data reduction and analysis, serial port and Bluetooth (com port) programming protocols, optimization, and spline toolbox examples – to name a few.

Please click on a link to the left to start learning Matlab.