Behavioral experiments (with no neural recordings)

Template:

sub-<label>/
    [ses-<label>/]
        beh/
            sub-<label>[_ses-<label>]_task-<label>[_acq-<label>][_run-<index>][_recording-<label>]_physio.json
            sub-<label>[_ses-<label>]_task-<label>[_acq-<label>][_run-<index>][_recording-<label>]_physio.tsv.gz
            sub-<label>[_ses-<label>]_task-<label>[_acq-<label>][_run-<index>][_recording-<label>]_stim.json
            sub-<label>[_ses-<label>]_task-<label>[_acq-<label>][_run-<index>][_recording-<label>]_stim.tsv.gz
            sub-<label>[_ses-<label>]_task-<label>[_acq-<label>][_run-<index>]_beh.json
            sub-<label>[_ses-<label>]_task-<label>[_acq-<label>][_run-<index>]_beh.tsv
            sub-<label>[_ses-<label>]_task-<label>[_acq-<label>][_run-<index>]_events.json
            sub-<label>[_ses-<label>]_task-<label>[_acq-<label>][_run-<index>]_events.tsv

In addition to logs from behavioral experiments performed alongside imaging data acquisitions, one can also include data from experiments performed with no neural recordings. The results of those experiments can be stored in the beh folder using the same formats for event timing (_events.tsv), metadata (_events.json), physiological (_physio.tsv.gz, _physio.json) and other continuous recordings (_stim.tsv.gz, _stim.json) as for tasks performed during MRI, electrophysiological or other neural recordings. Additionally, events files that do not include the mandatory onset and duration columns can still be included, but should be labeled _beh.tsv rather than _events.tsv.

Each task has a unique label that MUST only consist of letters and/or numbers (other characters, including spaces and underscores, are not allowed) with the task-<label> key/value pair. Those labels MUST be consistent across subjects and sessions.

The OPTIONAL acq-<label> key/value pair corresponds to a custom label to distinguish different conditions present during multiple runs of the same task. For example, if a study includes runs of an n-back task, with deep brain stimulation turned on or off, the data files may be labelled sub-01_task-nback_acq-dbson_beh.tsv and sub-01_task-nback_acq-dbsoff_beh.tsv.

RECOMMENDED metadata

In addition to the metadata that is either:

• RECOMMENDED for sidecar JSON files for tabular data, or

• REQUIRED for some data that can be found in the beh folder (for example SamplingFrequency and StartTime for *_<physio|stim>.tsv.gz files),

it is RECOMMENDED to add the following metadata to the JSON files of this folder:

Key name	Requirement Level	Data type	Description
TaskName	RECOMMENDED	string	Name of the task. No two tasks should have the same name. The task label included in the file name is derived from this "TaskName" field by removing all non-alphanumeric ([a-zA-Z0-9]) characters. For example "TaskName" "faces n-back" will correspond to task label facesnback.
Instructions	RECOMMENDED	string	Text of the instructions given to participants before the recording.
TaskDescription	RECOMMENDED	string	Longer description of the task.
CogAtlasID	RECOMMENDED	string	URI of the corresponding Cognitive Atlas Task term.
CogPOID	RECOMMENDED	string	URI of the corresponding CogPO term.
InstitutionName	RECOMMENDED	string	The name of the institution in charge of the equipment that produced the measurements.
InstitutionAddress	RECOMMENDED	string	The address of the institution in charge of the equipment that produced the measurements.
InstitutionalDepartmentName	RECOMMENDED	string	The department in the institution in charge of the equipment that produced the measurements.

Example of the content of a _beh.tsv and its accompanying _beh.json sidecar file:

trial   response    response_time   stim_file
congruent   red 1.435   images/word-red_color-red.jpg
incongruent red 1.739   images/word-red_color-blue.jpg

In the accompanying JSON sidecar, the trial column might be documented as follows:

{
   "TaskName": "Stroop",
   "trial": {
      "LongName": "Trial name",
      "Description": "Indicator of the type of trial",
      "Levels": {
         "congruent": "Word and font color match.",
         "incongruent": "Word and font color do not match."
      }
   }
}