Abstract
The study of pauses in human speech is an important component of the peycholinguistic analysis of speech patterns. Since the inception of this type of research, problems in instrumentation have presented a number of concerns. These problems have been well documented in the literature in pausology. While accurate instrumentation has been developed by several research teams, cost of such equipment has been high, and hand recording of data has been required. This report describes a microcomputer-based pause analysis apparatus, which enables the measurement of pause times precise to better than .01 sec at less cost than previous technology. The apparatus consists of analog hardware and digital computer hardware and software. A printout provides a permanent record of pause times keyed on a line-by-line basis to transcripts. Flexibility is built in by means of a BASIC program enabling specifications for selections of pauses between words, phrases, or sentences based on pause duration.
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This research was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant SED 8015819. J. Nathan Swift, principal investigator. Findings and opinions expressed in this paper are solely the responsibility of the authors. Information concerning software, including program listings, is available from the authors.
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Gooding, S.T., Gooding, C.T. & Swift, J.N. A microcomputer-based pause analysis apparatus. Behavior Research Methods & Instrumentation 14, 121–123 (1982). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202138
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202138