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Manipulating the time range of a DataSet offers some very useful possibilities.

Example: Imagine that you have two DataSets, including several Events, logged during the observation of two people in a waiting room. DataSet 1 includes the Observation Codes of "Person A"; DataSet 2 includes the Codes of "person B".
 
During your experiment, Person A shows the behavior you are interested in right from the start of the recorded session, resulting in 12 Events covering 10 minutes in total. Person B was much calmer and the first interesting behavior occurred 3 minutes after the experiment started. Person B also does not show any interesting action during the last 2 minutes of your experiment. In total, no more than 4 Events - with a total duration of 5 minutes - have been logged during the 10 minutes of observation of Person B.

Comparing results

If you did not code the exact start and end time of the experiment, visualizing those DataSets in the Timeline Chart, gets you two very different sets of information: One with a length of 10 minutes, one with a length of 5 minutes.

To create two comparable time ranges, you can adjust the time code information in DataSet 2 so that this DataSet also covers 10 minutes:

▪Click on the start time of the DataSet for Person B.

▪Press F2 to open the edit dialog.

▪Enter the start time of the experiment (use the start time of DataSet 1 if possible).

▪Click OK to confirm.

▪Click on the offset of the DataSet for Person B.

▪Press F2 to open the edit dialog.

▪Enter the end time of the experiment (use the offset of DataSet 1 if possible).

▪Click OK to confirm.

Now, both DataSets cover a total time frame of 10 minutes duration. This enables you to compare their statistical results.

The other way around is possible as well: You can "cut" the information of certain Events while creating a Timeline Chart, because statistical calculations (available from within the Timeline Chart window) only reflect what is visualized.

▪Reduce the time frame spanned by each DataSet, so it matches the shortest DataSet.

INTERACT now only uses the behavioral information that is found within this time frame.

IMPORTANT: Disable the automatic update of those time borders within this document, as described in Fixed DataSet Time Borders.