TicTimer: software for measuring tic suppression

What is it about?

An article describing a piece of software that logs tics and rewards during a training session. Intended for research in tic disorders.

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Why is it important?

Counting tics in various experimental conditions (like "tic if you want / need to" or "try not to tic") is a key part of research on tic suppression in tic disorders. It is also basically an attention test for the tic watcher (like me), and that's a situation that just begs for human errors. So Jon Koller and later Jon Black wrote software that automates parts of that, including logging to a text file whenever I push a "tic detected" button, and then reporting measures of tic frequency. Jon Black also connected the software to a piece of hardware that dispenses a "reward token" a.k.a. poker chip for some studies in which we want to give frequent, immediate rewards for a brief period of successful tic suppression. So now these studies run much more smoothly. This software tool report simply describes all this and links to the source code that we put online, so others can use it or improve on it as desired.