Facilities

When participants arrive at the lab, we first provide an audiometry screening, which tests their hearing sensitivity. These screenings are used as a control measure, and are not a clinical evaluation. 

One of our experiment rooms is used exclusively for vocal imitation studies. Inside the sound atteuated booth, participants hear auditory feedback through comfortable circumaural headphones while clean, high quality vocal recordings are obtained with a dynamic microphone. Outside the booth is a workstation that seats an assistant who controls the experiment. This room also has an extra desk with monitors for running additional perception experiments.

EMG recordings also are used for measuring sub-vocalizations in vocal imitation studies. Here a lab member is attaching EMG electrodes to a participant.

The sequence production room is where tapping and keyboard-based experiments are performed in another sound-attenuated booth. A motion capture camera system is available for use in tapping experiments examining intrinsic timing patterns.

Part of the motion capture system involves attaching tiny light-emitting diodes to each finger (shown here). Light from the diodes are then detected by the motion capture cameras mounted above the participant. As the fingers move upwards and downwards, the camera records the movement of the diodes. After the experiment, recorded velocities and accelerations of each movement undergo detailed analysis.

Computers used at the laboratory workstations in our conference room are capable of running numerous operating systems and data analysis programs, as well as foster collaboration between students and faculty.