What is PRISM?

PRISM (Psychological Research Information System Model) is a data-structure and metadata model for psychological experiment datasets. It extends the BIDS standard to support modalities common in psychological research-like surveys, biometrics, eyetracking, and environment-while ensuring your data remains fully compatible with existing BIDS tools.

PRISM Studio is the software that implements PRISM workflows such as conversion, validation runs, scoring execution, and export.

PRISM is an Add-On, Not a Replacement

Important

PRISM does not replace BIDS—it enhances it. Your PRISM-validated datasets will still work with fMRIPrep, MRIQC, and all other BIDS apps.

Aspect	BIDS	PRISM
Focus	Neuroimaging (MRI, EEG, MEG)	Psychological experiments
Surveys	Limited support	Full support with item descriptions
Biometrics	Not clearly standardized	Sports/performance tests (e.g., VO2max, Y-Balance, CMJ) with rich metadata
Physio	Basic support	Primarily EDF+/EDF signal workflows, plus TSV-based recordings with metadata
Eyetracking	Emerging support	Complete schema validation
Environment	Not standardized in practice	Structured environmental context sidecars
Scoring execution	Not included	Implemented in PRISM Studio (recipes/derivatives tools)
Export workflows	Raw data focus	Implemented in PRISM Studio (SPSS/CSV/integration exports)

How PRISM Stays BIDS-Compatible

PRISM uses a .bidsignore file to tell BIDS validators to skip PRISM-specific files. This means:

✅ Standard BIDS apps (fMRIPrep, MRIQC) work normally
✅ Your MRI data validates against the BIDS standard
✅ PRISM-model files and PRISM Studio outputs are organized alongside your data
✅ One dataset, one folder structure, maximum compatibility

Key Benefits

1. 🔍 Validation

Catch errors before they become problems:

Structured error codes (PRISM001–PRISM999) with clear explanations
Auto-fix for common issues
Severity levels: Errors, warnings, and suggestions
BIDS validation can run alongside PRISM validation

2. 📝 Self-Documenting Data

Every data file has a sidecar JSON with complete metadata:

{
  "SurveyName": "Best Inventory Ever",
  "Items": [
    {
      "ItemID": "BIE01",
      "Question": {
        "en": "Sadness",
        "de": "Traurigkeit"
      },
      "ResponseOptions": {
        "0": "I do not feel sad",
        "1": "I feel sad much of the time",
        "2": "I am sad all the time",
        "3": "I am so sad I can't stand it"
      }
    }
  ]
}

This makes your data:

Understandable without external documentation
Reusable by other researchers
FAIR-compliant (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable)

3. 📊 Questionnaire Scoring in PRISM Studio

Scoring is a PRISM Studio software feature, not part of the PRISM model itself.

Calculate scores automatically with recipes in PRISM Studio:

{
  "RecipeName": "BIE Total Score",
  "Scoring": {
    "DEMO_total": {
      "operation": "sum",
      "items": ["IE01", "BIE02", "BIE03", "..."]
    }
  }
}

4. 📤 SPSS-Ready Export in PRISM Studio

PRISM Studio can export scored data directly to SPSS (.save) with:

Variable labels
Value labels (e.g., 1 = “Male”, 2 = “Female”)
Proper data types

5. 🌐 Web Interface

PRISM Studio provides a user-friendly interface for:

Creating and managing projects
Converting Excel/CSV/SPSS data
Validating datasets
Running scoring recipes
Browsing the survey library

Model vs Software Boundary

PRISM defines structure, naming, and metadata expectations.
PRISM Studio provides operational tooling like conversion, validation runs, scoring execution, and exports.

Supported Modalities

Modality	File Extension	Description
survey	`.tsv` + `.json`	Questionnaires, assessments
biometrics	`.tsv` + `.json`	Sports/performance tests (e.g., VO2max, Y-Balance, CMJ, sit-and-reach)
eyetracking	`.tsv` + `.json`	Gaze data, fixations, saccades
physiological	`.edf`/`.edf+` or `.tsv`/`.tsv.gz` + `.json`	Continuous physiological signals (ECG, EMG, respiration, EDA)
environment	`.tsv` + `.json`	Environmental/contextual derivatives and sidecars
events	`.tsv` + `.json`	Stimulus presentation logs
anat/func/dwi/fmap	Standard BIDS	MRI data (validated by BIDS)
eeg	Standard BIDS-EEG	EEG data (validated by BIDS)

Project Structure (YODA Layout)

PRISM encourages the YODA principles for reproducible research:

my_study/
├── dataset_description.json
├── participants.tsv
├── participants.json
├── sub-001/
│   └── survey/
│       ├── sub-001_task-demo_survey.tsv
│       └── sub-001_task-demo_survey.json
├── code/                       # Analysis scripts
├── analysis/                   # Results and derivatives
└── project.json               # Project metadata

Next Steps

Installation – Get PRISM running in 5 minutes
Quick Start – Your first PRISM project
Workshop – Hands-on exercises with example data