Table 1.

List of variables communicated between the Arduino and host computer.

	Description	Units
Variable inputs
lickThres	Digital threshold to apply to lick sensor	converted 5 V/1024
mode	Sets the mode of the Arduino– habituation mode or operant mode	“o”/“h”
trialType	Code for the type of trial run	“G”/“N”
break_wrongChoice	Flag to end the trial early if a wrong decision is detected	0/1
break_on_early	Flag to cancel the trial if a lick is detected before stimulus onset	0/1
minlickCount	Number of licks required to trigger reward delivery, or punishment.
t_noLickPer	Time prior to stimulus onset which must be void of licking before a trial is initiated.	ms
timeout	Amount of time to add to inter-trial interval if a wrong decision is made	ms
t_stimONSET	Time the stimulus is presented	ms
t_stimDUR	Duration of stimulus	ms
t_rewardDEL	Delay from the end of stimulus until activating the lick sensor	ms
t_rewardDUR	Duration the lick sensor is sampling for licks during response period	ms
waterVol	Amount of time to hold the water valve open for	ms
debounce	Duration the lick sensor needs to be high in order to call a lick (implements the simplest digital filter)	ms
Outputs
Water	Returns 1 if water was given this trial	0/1
N_timeouts	Returns the number of times the timeout was triggered since the end of the last trial
response	Returns the code for the response type	“h” (hit), “m” (miss), “f” (false alarm), “c” (correct rejection)
delta	Returns the difference in lick frequencies
pre_count	Number of licks made during the response period
post_count	Number of licks made during the baseline period
t_stimDUR	Returns the duration of stimulus	ms