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ANY-maze Help > The ANY-maze reference > The Protocol page > The elements of a protocol > Inputs and outputs > Pellet dispensers > Pellet dispenser measures
Pellet dispenser measures
 | ANY-maze has been designed to be extended, and we'll be delighted to add any new measures you might find useful, for free! Just contact ANY-maze Support. |
ANY-maze will score the following measures for a pellet dispenser:
Each measure is available for the apparatus as whole (i.e. irrespective of where the animal was when the pellet dispenser activation occurred), and also for each defined zone.
Note that the determination of when (and if) a pellet is 'dispensed' will depend on the pellet dispenser:
| | • | Some pellet dispensers (for example, the Ugo Basile pellet dispenser used with the ANY-maze Digital interface, pellet dispensers made by Lafayette Instrument Company, or the Med Associates VeriFEED pellet dispenser) contain a status input which, if connected, will indicate to ANY-maze when the pellet was successfully dispensed (which is likely to be a short time after ANY-maze asked for it to be dispensed). | |
| | • | For all pellet dispensers without any status feedback, ANY-maze will treat the pellet as being dispensed when it asks for it. For these pellet dispensers, if the pellet fails to dispense, ANY-maze will never know - so the count of pellets dispensed recorded by ANY-maze may be greater than the actual number of pellets that the animal has received. | |
| | • | Some pellet dispensers include an 'Error' feedback, rather than a status - but this type of feedback can occur some time after the pellet has been dispensed, and so ANY-maze will treat these in the same way as a pellet dispenser without any feedback - i.e. it will count the pellet as being dispensed when it asks for it. However, any error feedback will be noted in the Errors & Warnings panel during a test, and in the Test details report (and other related test reports) so you have an indication that an error occurred during the test. | |
Number of pellets dispensed
| Description | Reports the number of pellets that were dispensed. For Ugo Basile pellet dispensers, feedback from the device ensures that this is the actual count of pellets dispensed; for all other pellet dispensers, this is the count of the number of times that ANY-maze asked the device to dispense a pellet (where there is feedback, it occurs some time afterwards and so ANY-maze must assume that the dispense was successful!). |
| Calculation method | Counts the number of pellets dispensed. |
| Analysis in zones | Counts the number of pellets dispensed when the animal was in the zone. |
| Analysis across time | This measure can be analysed across time. For any time period, the result is the number of pellets dispensed during the time period. |
| Notes | For more details on how delayed feedback from the pellet dispenser will affect the count of pellets dispensed, see Pellet Dispenser errors. |
Latency to first pellet dispensed
| Description | Reports the amount of time that elapsed in the test before the first pellet was dispensed. |
| Calculation method | The value of the test clock when the first pellet was dispensed. |
| Analysis in zones | The value of the test clock at the time the first pellet was dispensed while the animal was within the zone. |
| Analysis across time | This measure can be analysed across time. The value is the time since the start of the time segment or time period that the first pellet was dispensed in the time segment or time period. If no pellet was dispensed in the time segment or time period then the result is #N/A, unless the analysis option to Use the test duration as the latency for events which don't occur is set, in which case the result will be the duration of the time segment or period. |
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ANY-maze help topic T0238
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