ANY-maze Help > The ANY-maze reference > The Protocol page > The elements of a protocol > Inputs and outputs > Light controllers > Setting up a light controller > Specifying whether a light controller should be reset at the end of the test

Specifying whether a light controller should be reset at the end of the test

In brief

At the end of a test, ANY-maze will switch a light controller off and will reset it to the light level specified on the light controller's settings page. However, there may be circumstances under which you would like the light controller's state to roll over from one test to the next, for example:

You might not want the light to switch off until after you have removed the animal from the apparatus.

During a test you might use a procedure to dynamically alter the level of the light, thus at the end of the test the light may be a different brightness to the default options specified in the protocol. Now, you may want to retain whatever that level is, so that it is the same in the next test.

The option Don't reset the light controller at the end of the test would appear to be the solution to these requirements, but in fact in most case it will only actually be suitable for situation #1. For #2 selecting it probably won't have the effect you'd expect:

•

The state would be retained from one test to the next, but not from one trial to the next. For example, imagine that your test schedule is such that you will test animal 1 in its first trial, then animal 2 in its first trial and then animal 1 in its second trial, etc. What would happen is that after animal 1's first trial the state of the light controller would remain the same, and so this would be the state that would apply to animal 2's first trial... which is probably not what you want.

•

Even if the above didn't apply (for example, in your schedule you might test animal 1 four times in a row), then if you exited ANY-maze after trial 2 and then restarted it again, the state of the light controller would be lost.

In this case, the best way to ensure that a light controller's state is retained from one trial to the next is to use a procedure; this is described in detail here.

ANY-maze help topic T0295