FAQ (Frequently asked questions)

In the following you find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about ANSLAB.

Do I need MATLAB to run ANSLAB?
Yes, you do. Any MATLAB version up from version 7.8 will work. In addition, you also need the „MATLAB Signal Processing Toolbox“ and the „MATLAB Statistics Toolbox“ (statistical parametric response analysis only). See also ANSLAB Downloads.

Is ANSLAB running on all platforms supported with MATLAB?
OpenANSLAB should run on all platforms. ANSLAB Professional is running on Linux, Mac, and Windows from version 2.6.

How much does ANSLAB Professional licensing cost?
Licensing costs depend on the functionality you need. Please see ANSLAB Professional.

What does a license include?
An ANSLAB license includes an unlimited number of installations in your workgroup or lab and no annual fees apply. You also receive free updates and the licensing fee includes a one hour Internet based introduction.

How easy is it to use ANSLAB?
ANSLAB was developed during the past 20 years in our own research and then expanded to make it accessible to other researchers. Thus, its usability is good but certainly not comparable to high-end professional software like MS Office. But ANSLAB Professional offers a user-friendly user interface and many more improvements in contrast to OpenANSLAB, making it more easy to use in a more efficient way.

The software is highly flexible to analyze a wide range of channel setups and study designs. Each analysis module is optimized for the specific needs of a certain physiological channel type (e.g., some requiring much and some little manual supervision and control). Due to this built in flexibility one will need some time to get accustomed to the different analysis types and options of the software. This is why we recommend ANSLAB particularly to researchers with some prior experience in psychophysiological data analysis.

Larger labs who regularly conduct large psychophysiology studies will benefit most from the productivity enhancing features.

Is ANSLAB open source?
OpenANSLAB is completely open source. Regarding ANSLAB Professional you may choose the licensing option to get the full ANSLAB source code (except for the licensing module). You may then edit and modify any parts of the code for your scientific work. However, only bugs and problems in unmodified parts of ANSLAB are handled by our support.

Who else uses ANSLAB?
See References for some of our users. You can also browse Google Scholar for articles citing ANSLAB.