Searching for contingent annotations
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Searching for contingent annotations
We are using ELAN (3.6.0) to do searches based on temporal distance between annotations, as shown in the manual p. 173-4. For example, we would like to search for instances of annotation A that occur within 15 seconds before the begin time of annotation B. These annotations are on different tiers. When we use the temporal constraint search function, we have an option to search around (i.e. on either side of) the begin time of annotation B (within...around begin time) but there does not seem to be an option for only searching 15 seconds before the beginning of annotation B. If we use the "before...before begin time" we get every instance of annotation A from the beginning of the file.
Are we missing something or is there no way to do a search for the presence of annotation A 15 seconds before (versus around) the beginning of annotation B?
Thanks,
Mike
Re: Searching for contingent annotations
I think it should be possible to achieve this by combining multiple temporal constraints. By having two temporal constraint panels as direct "child" of the first "FIND" panel, these constraints are treated as a logical AND.
Two temporal constraints can be achieved as follows: when the first "FIND" panel has been filled, click the Add constraint button and define the constraint parameters for this panel. Then select the first panel again and click the Add constriant button (this is something different from clicking the Add constraint button with the second panel active). You have now two constraint panels at the same level to combine temporal constraints.
I believe a combination of "within...around begin time" and e.g. "before...before begin time" should be enough to render the results you need (I may be wrong, might depend on the data).
The "Multiple Layer Search" tab of the "Structured Search in Multiple eaf" function, offers more flexibility in defining temporal relations between annotations on different tiers (begin - begin, begin - end, end - end etc.). Right click the green boxes between 2 textfields in the same column.
Unfortunately, the current version of this particular search function contains a bug exactly in handling these time relations. This will be fixed in the next release and then this function could be a good alternative for the "single file" find function.
-Han
Release of ELAN 4.3.0
