COMP9844 - NeuraLab Experiment 1

This lab is designed to introduce students to advanced techniques in Inductive Neural Network Technology. It utilises the start-of-the-art equipment in CSE's NeuraLab^®.

It is wise to read through the instructions well in advance of your actual lab.

Class members should report to the NeuraLab at 11.30pm on the day of their timetabled lab class, and form teams of three. (NeuraLab is located in the K17 sub-basement, which has a direct connection to the lightning conductor on the roof of K17, for power enhancement.) The lab attendant will direct your attention to the animal and human ethics consent forms, which you should complete as rapidly as possible, no need to read them closely, as there is a lot of work to fit into the lab period!

Each group of three should decide among themselves who is to be the Subject, who will be the Operator, and who will be the Observer. The Observer for each team will be located in the insulated re-enforced glass booth on one side of the NeuraLab proper. It is important at this stage to note down whether the Subject is a postgraduate student or a senior undergraduate.

Experimental Procedure

The Subjects must each choose a brush turkey (Alectura lathami) from the animal house in the adjacent room. Choose carefully, as you may have a prolonged and intimate relationship with the animal should any carelessness on your team's part result in a malfunction in the NeuraLab software. Write your name on the turkey leg-band and fasten the band on your turkey's legs, to avoid any unplanned mix-ups. You are advised to choose a turkey of the same gender as yourself in order to simplify re-orientation in a later stage in the experiment. (The female can easily be identified, as it has much smaller yellow wattles than the breeding male bird in the illustration below. Of course, non-breeding males have smaller wattles, too.)
If you are an Observer, you should now enter the observation room, and don the goggles and headphones provided. Spend at least ten minutes familiarising yourself with the monitors and controls, which provide you with facilities to record the phenomena you are about to observe, not just in audio and video, but also in terms of neural traces from the 148,000 leads used in the NeuralLab hardware. You may need to act quickly in the event of a sudden development (let alone a malfunction!)
The Subjects should, after transferring their chosen turkey to the custody of their Operator, be seated in the human subject chair in their transfer station area. Each Operator should, after securing the turkey in the animal restraint opposite their Subject, fasten the restraints on the Subject in the human-sized chair. This should be done firmly and most carefully, for reasons that will become very clear as the experiment proceeds. At this stage, each Operator should double-check to confirm that the legband on the their turkey has the name of his/her Subject on it.
Next, each Operator should take the two helmets with attached cables and electrodes and place them over the heads of their turkey and their (human) Subject. The turkey-sized one is, of course, used for the turkey, and the larger one for the Subject. Trying to use them the other way around is not funny, and may result in serious academic misconduct penalties. Automatic systems (details of which cannot be revealed because of a confidentiality agreement in a NeuraLab R&D contract with the US Department of Defense) now cut in and implant harmless nano-electrodes into the scalp of the Subject. These nano-electrodes painlessly infiltrate the cranial sutures and faultlessly connect to neurons of the neocortex, concentrating on key regions of the parietal cortex and the DLPFC (dorso-lateral pre-frontal cortex).
Each Operator should now sit down at his/her control console and spend at least ten minutes familiarising him/herself with the facilities provided. It is possible that in the case of incomplete success of the automated process, you may need to adjust the parameters and possibly activate semi-automated insertion of supplementary nano-electrodes.
When the Operator is confident that s/he has mastered the controls, s/he should signal to the Observer that all is in readiness, and wait for a confirmation from the Observer that s/he is ready to record the experimental data. On receiving this confirmation, identify the large red lever. Grasp the lever and push up firmly, to move the lever from the OFF position to the ON position. Although the helmets provide reasonable sound insulation, some Operators find that it is comforting to wear hearing protection during this step - you will find industrial grade (60dB) hearing protection at each transfer station.
The Observer must ensure that the recording systems are activated at least 10 seconds in advance of the transfer - not too much more because of the massive bandwidth consumed.
The essence and consciousness of Subject and turkey should now have been swapped between the two. It is wise to maintain the restraints during this phase of the experiment, following an incident in which a careless Operator allowed a Subject to escape into the scrub behind the lower campus carpark.
To confirm that the transfer has been performed successfully, take some of the turkey food (consisting of seeds, fruits, grain, insects and earthworms) in the packets at each transfer station and offer it to the Subject. If s/he accepts and consumes the food, it is safe to say that transfer has taken place, at least in one direction. Low grunts and moans, clucking, and utterance of a sound resembling Gock!, are also diagnostic of the transfer having taken place in this direction.

Next, present the turkey with a simple C-programming task, and the second screen and keyboard provided (the keyboard that looks as though it has been pecked). Automated software is provided to check the solution created by the turkey: anything higher than 46% is regarded as a pass for undergraduates^[a] provided that they have a good WAM; for a postgraduate Subject, however, 50% must be achieved.
In case of failure, it will be necessary to consult the troubleshooting guide, accessible on-line from the Operator's console. This will explain how to adjust the parameters and activate the secondary nano-electrodes. Following the instructions closely, modify the parameters as necessary and then, after confirming Observer readiness, reach down and pull the blue lever with the red F (for Fix) in one smooth movement.
Repeat the testing and if necessary adjust the parameters and pull the blue lever until success is achieved.
When all experimental measurements and tests have been satisfactorily completed, you will need to reverse the transformation/exchange. This should in no circumstances be attempted before testing reveals complete and successful transfer has occurred, as otherwise it may be difficult to unravel the personalities of Subject and turkey - in which case the Subject's parents/family may end up spending a fortune on bird-seed and earthworms.
The final step of this experiment, in which the turkey and Subject personalities are restored to their original configuration, is complex, and is described in the Reversing the turkey-human transformation web page.

Acknowledgment

The course coordinator would like to thank Richard Buckland^[1] for his inestimable assistance in the design and implementation of the NeuraLab systems.

Footnote

Undergraduates who are potential graduands with no other failures in the current term and a good WAM should also be considered for a pass, in accordance with UNSW policy. Hmm, or maybe a supp (mwahahaha).
My thanks to Thurston Dang^[2] for pointing this out.

Reference

Buckland, RJ, Shelley, MW, & Ouija, BD: Interspecific transfer of neural connectivity in the Gallo-Primate model: II. Practice. International Journal of Experimental Neuromimetics 13(1) 2006 23-40.
Dang, T: Personal communication, 22 October 2008.