Theme detects statistically significant time patterns in sequences of behaviors. These so called T-patterns are based on the timing of events, relative to each other. This can give striking new insights into the structure of behavior that cannot be found with the naked eye or with any other method.

• Get new and unexpected insights into your research.
• Detect subtle differences in behavior that other methods cannot detect.
• Theme is much more powerful than other sequential analysis methods.
• Sensitive to patterns, though insensitive to random variation.
• Unravel the time structure of behavior at any level of detail.
• Analyze raw behavioral data – little or no data pre-processing and post-processing necessary.
• Get quantitative results suitable for statistical analysis.

Scientists have been conducting research with Theme for over twenty years, and Theme has been successfully used in a wide variety of disciplines (developmental psychology, psychiatry, etc). Theme can be used in conjunction with any of the solutions described on this website, or as a stand-alone package. Theme was developed by PatternVision Ltd. (Reykjavik, Iceland).

T-patterns
Timing and order are crucial to the effectiveness of nearly any kind of action, but they are often hard to capture in statistics. Theme is a software package that was especially developed to deal with this challenge. If two behaviors are linked by a certain time interval more often than expected by chance, Theme defines them as a T-pattern. This T-pattern analysis gives new and unexpected insights into the structure of behavior.

Well-established model
Theme is based on a well-established mathematical model. Due to this model Theme can detect much more structure than other methods (series of 20-30 events are no exception, where most methods stop at 3-5).The basis of Theme is a statistical test that finds significant time intervals between two series of events. The dyads found are tested against other events and dyads, and new connections are made. This is repeated until no new relationships are found. A special algorithm eliminates duplicate and incomplete patterns. In other words, Theme describes behavior in terms of time relationships between activities.

Social interactions
Theme is especially effective in the analysis of social interactions. Most behavior is highly organized in time but can also be quite variable. Contrary to other methods, Theme can detect and quantify the overall time structure in behavioral data without being distracted by the variation in details. 

Robust
The results found by Theme are very robust. The probability of long T-patterns occurring by chance is extremely low in most data. Theme performs checks against chance effects. A rigorous randomization function checks which proportion of the patterns can be explained by chance. In most data that is a small subset of the shorter patterns.

Features
Theme can import, filter and pre-process data, and detect patterns by objective statistical criteria. The resulting pattern sets can be displayed, searched, and analyzed in a number of ways. Pattern statistics can be exported to statistical software packages for further analysis.

Import data and detect patterns
Theme works well on most raw behavioral data. It has built-in pre-processing options for filtering and reorganizing the data so data can be imported easily. When you import data, the pattern detection engine can be tuned to the desired level of detail, sensitivity, types of pattern, and calculation time. Pattern detection works best on continuously scored events, such as the data produced by The Observer XT.

• PatternVision Data Exchange Program (DEP)
  With the PatternVision DEP, an accurate conversion of data from The Observer XT to Theme for extensive analysis has become much easier. The DEP is a simple and straightforward program that converts exported files from The Observer XT 7.0, 8.0, and 9.0 (.ODX files) to text files that Theme can then import. The DEP and manual are available for FREE to Theme users on the Theme download site of the Noldus webpage.

Search and filter the detected patterns
The detected patterns can be searched and filtered in a number of ways, allowing you to focus on important details. There are simple criteria like behaviors, pattern length, pattern frequency, and number of actors involved in patterns. There are also advanced criteria based on the relationships between patterns and the underlying event data. Criteria can be freely combined and the results can be stored for later use.

Presentation of patterns
The overall structure of the behavior is presented in a matrix of linked event types. An overview of the position of event types in patterns gives an impression of their relative importance. At the lowest level of detail, individual patterns can be displayed on a timeline and the associated video fragments can be played to see the pattern unfold. You can use this feature for presentations and conferences.
Theme gives all the details for each pattern: exact times for each occurrence, significance, and various other statistics. For behaviors with a spatial element like choosing items in a store, Theme can show a path graph.

Perform statistical tests and export data
Theme provides a full range of descriptive statistics per input file, such as number of patterns, length, and diversity. These statistics are measures of overall structure which can be more sensitive to the effect of experimental treatment than frequency and duration based statistics. The statistics can be exported as a table to statistical packages, with their independent variables.