Release 7.0

[teddychao]

Background

PsPM has grown to a level of complexity where it has become difficult to maintain. A major update is needed to remove functionalities no longer needed, to make functions more consistent across the PsPM ecosystem, and to remove duplication. Some of these changes will break backward compatibility of pre-processed data, and of matlabbatch scripts and function calls.

Proposed major changes

1. PsPM main GUI (red window) calls the matlabbatch editor for many functionalities. This creates unnecessary duplication. From the two available options to create a matlabbatch module, the matlabbatch drop down is preferable, as it allows creating batch jobs with dependencies.

Thus, it is proposed to remove all options from the main PsPM GUI that lead to a module in the batch editor, and retain interactive options only. These are:
Data display | Data editor | ECG editor | Model review | Batch editor | Help | Bug report (Github issues)
and a placeholder for a future interactive "Data inspector".

2. PsPM second-level model options are complicated to use and limited in scope. It is generally recommended to export parameter estimates and use the full power of statistical softwares like R to analyse them - as one would do for any other kind of psychophysiological analysis.

Thus, it is proposed to remove the contrast manager and all second level model functions.

3. PsPM preprocessing functions use diverging conventions for inputs, outputs, and file/channel handling. This complicates the use (and teaching) of PsPM.

Thus, it is proposed to unify conventions for function input, output, and file/channel handling (distributed across several pull requests). This will make previous scripts incompatible with PsPM 7.

Proposed bugfixes and minor changes

Feature Description

This feature request highlights the issues to be resolved in the hot fix 6.2.

• Issue Integrate pupil model to matlabbatch and PsPM GUI #96
• Issue pspm_convert_ppg2hb supports both options.replace and options.channel_action #559
• Issue Implement new HPR model #579
• Issue Implement new PPG2HB method robustly #580
• Issue GUI issues in version 6.1.1 #591