Laboratory

The laboratory is an advanced research facility that has been designed for the study of speech production and perception.

This state-of-the-art facility is equipped with a range of advanced technologies and tools, which are aimed at providing researchers, postdocs and PhD students with the necessary resources to conduct research in the field.

The experimental area of the laboratory is housed in a soundproof booth, which has been designed to minimize any external interference and ensure optimal recording conditions. Within the booth, researchers have access to two ultrasound systems, which are essential for acoustic and articulatory analysis.

Additionally, the facility features probe-stabilization helmets, which are used to measure the position and orientation of the ultrasound probes.

Software

  • AAA Articulate Instruments Ltd software used to elicit, record, and analyze UTI data.

  • Multispeech Kay Elemetrics software used to analyze acoustic data.

  • Speech Studio software is used for laryngographic data acquisition and analysis.

  • Elan annotation tool for audio and video recordings by The Language Archive, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.

  • R for statistical computing and graphics developed by The R Foundation. It compiles and runs on a wide variety of UNIX platforms, Windows, and macOS.

  • Praat for analyzing, synthesizing, and manipulating speech, developed by Paul Boersma and David Weenink, University of Amsterdam.

Hardware

  • Puma Pro30 Soundproof chamber. This soundproof chamber is an essential part of the equipment. Thanks to its structure, lined with a sound absorbent material to minimize reflections, it provides a noise-reduced and echo-free environment. The cabin is used for speech recordings that require highly controlled acoustic conditions. Technical sheet

  • Ultrasonix SonixTablet Ultrasonic SonixTablet 19″. Compact ultrasound system with a 19″ touch screen. Ultrasonix allows the capture of high frame rate images of the tongue. This non-invasive device visualizes the movements of the tongue in real time during speech, providing a unique tool for dynamic articulatory phonetic analysis. Technical sheet

  • SonoSite 180 A portable ultrasound system useful for sociophonetic fieldwork and UTI training.

  • Probe Stabilisation Headset A helmet that keeps the head of the speaker and the ultrasound transducer in constant relationship.

  • SyncBrightUp This unit from Articulate Instruments Ltd synchronizes audio and video inputs. Technical sheet

  • GoPro Hero3 This helmet camera is mounted on the Probe Stabilisation Headset to capture the speaker’s lip movements. Technical sheet

  • Zoom H2, H4 Zoom H2 and H4 recorders. Technical sheet

  • Laryngograph MicroProcessor EGG-D800 A non-invasive device used to measure the contact between the vocal folds during vibration. Two electrodes are positioned on the speaker’s neck on opposite sides of the thyroid cartilage to measure vocal fold contact area. Technical sheet

  • Shure SM35 microphones These headset condenser microphones are useful for recording high-quality speech even outside the lab, as they can be set steadily at a fixed distance from the speaker’s mouth. Technical sheet