Design, run and share cognitive experiments, privately and locally

SYNAPSE: Synergistic Neurophysiological Assessment of Perception in Sensory Environments

Open the platform · Try the demo · Design an experiment · Documentation · Cite

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SYNAPSE is an open, browser-based platform for cognitive experiments. Assemble a session from established task paradigms, questionnaires, rest baselines and soundscapes; run it on any laptop; and download analysis-ready data. No installation, no server, no account, and no participant data leaving the computer.

It was built for the SYNAPSE study at the Technical University of Denmark (2025), a multi-domain indoor environmental quality study: lighting colour and urban soundscapes were varied together while thermal and air-quality conditions were monitored, and occupants' cognition, physiology and perceived comfort were recorded. Its time-aligned occupant and building data serve building informatics: data-driven comfort and performance models, occupant-centric building operation and digital twins. The complete study session is included as a ready-to-run protocol.

✨ Highlights

🧠 Nine task paradigms	N-back (letters, digits), colour-word, emoji and emotional-word Stroop, arrow and digit flanker, visual counting, shape comparison
✎ Experiment designer	Templates, drag-and-drop steps, trial numbers, time limits, practice trials with feedback, your own instructions and questionnaires
⇄ Counterbalancing	Session conditions, random-order groups, soundscapes and colour themes that follow a condition
⬇ Analysis-ready data	One ZIP per session or all sessions combined: trials, questionnaire answers and an event log as CSV, plus a JSON with the protocol and seed
⟲ Reproducible	Seeded trial lists, the protocol stored with every session, shareable protocol files
🔒 Private by design	Runs entirely in the browser; data stay on the computer until you download them

🖼️ A look inside

Task gallery — live previews and one-minute try-outs	Experiment designer — templates, steps, practice and feedback
Running session — progress bar, timer and researcher controls	Open science — cite the software, dataset and protocol

🚀 Get started

Use it online: open https://synapse.ptomar.com and choose Explore the demo, Design an experiment or Start a session.

Run it on your own computer (e.g. offline in a lab): download this repository and serve the folder with any static web server:

git clone https://github.com/tomarp/synapse-platform.git
cd synapse-platform
python3 -m http.server 8000      # then open http://localhost:8000

A five-minute walk-through is on the platform's Guide page. Protocol and questionnaire formats, the data dictionary and the test suite are described in the documentation.

📚 Cite

If you use SYNAPSE in your research, please cite the software:

Tomar, P. (2026). SYNAPSE experiment platform [Computer software]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23768059

BibTeX

@software{tomar_2026_synapse_platform,
  author    = {Tomar, Puneet},
  title     = {{SYNAPSE} experiment platform},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {Zenodo},
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.23768059}
}

Related outputs of the SYNAPSE study:

• Dataset: Tomar, P., Dave, T., Wargocki, P., & Pisello, A. L. (2026). SYNAPSE: cognitive performance, EEG, wrist physiology, facial thermography and indoor environment under warm and cool LED lighting and urban soundscapes [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23458777
• Protocol: Tomar, P., Dave, T., Wargocki, P., & Pisello, A. L. (2026). Multimodal assessment of cognitive performance, physiology and perceived indoor environment under warm and cool LED lighting and urban soundscapes (SYNAPSE). protocols.io. https://doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.m7vznm25rvx1/v1

GitHub's Cite this repository button (right sidebar) reads the same information from CITATION.cff.

👤 Author

Puneet Tomar: Environmental Applied Physics Lab at CIRIAF, University of Perugia, and Department of Environmental and Resource Engineering, Technical University of Denmark.

ORCID · E-mail · LinkedIn · Telegram

Questions, ideas and bug reports are welcome as GitHub issues.

🇪🇺 Funding

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101073357 (MuSIC).

📄 License

Code: MIT. Task images and backgrounds are AI-generated (OpenAI GPT-4o, Microsoft Designer Image Creator). The soundscapes are spectrum-matched noise substitutes for the original study recordings. Logos belong to their owners. Details: documentation → Media · changelog.