Taming the Heathkit-Votrax speech synthesizer

Three inexpensive text-to-speech synthesizers are described, intelligibility data from a pilot experiment are reported, and software is offered that has been written to facilitate the phonemic programming of the Heathkit-Votrax synthesizer.     

TwoMP: A MATLAB graphical user interface for two-mode partitioning

Two-way two-mode data occur in almost every domain of scientific psychology. The information present in such data, however, may be hard to grasp because of the dimensions of one or both modes. Two-mode partitioning addresses this problem by breaking down both modes into a number of mutually exclusive and exhaustive subsets. Although such a technique may be very useful, up to now, software—and consequently, two-mode partitioning—has been available only to a handful of specialists in the field. In this article, we present a free, easy-to-use MATLAB graphical user interface (TwoMP) for two-mode partitioning models, specifically developed for nonspecialist users. A short formal introduction is given on the statistics of the method, and the basic use of TwoMP is demonstrated with an example.     

A graphical user interface for infant ERP analysis

Recording of event-related potentials (ERPs) is one of the best-suited technologies for examining brain function in human infants. Yet the existing software packages are not optimized for the unique requirements of analyzing artifact-prone ERP data from infants. We developed a new graphical user interface that enables an efficient implementation of a two-stage approach to the analysis of infant ERPs. In the first stage, video records of infant behavior are synchronized with ERPs at the level of individual trials to reject epochs with noncompliant behavior and other artifacts. In the second stage, the interface calls MATLAB and EEGLAB (Delorme & Makeig, Journal of Neuroscience Methods 134(1):9–21, 2004) functions for further preprocessing of the ERP signal itself (i.e., filtering, artifact removal, interpolation, and rereferencing). Finally, methods are included for data visualization and analysis by using bootstrapped group averages. Analyses of simulated and real EEG data demonstrated that the proposed approach can be effectively used to establish task compliance, remove various types of artifacts, and perform representative visualizations and statistical comparisons of ERPs. The interface is available for download from http://www.uta.fi/med/icl/methods/eeg.html in a format that is widely applicable to ERP studies with special populations and open for further editing by users.     

The LMPCA program: A graphical user interface for fitting the linked-mode PARAFAC-PCA model to coupled real-valued data

In behavioral research, PARAFAC analysis, a three-mode generalization of standard principal component analysis (PCA), is often used to disclose the structure of three-way three-mode data. To get insight into the underlying mechanisms, one often wants to relate the component matrices resulting from such a PARAFAC analysis to external (two-way two-mode) information, regarding one of the modes of the three-way data. To this end, linked-mode PARAFAC-PCA analysis can be used, in which the three-way and the two-way data set, which have one mode in common, are simultaneously analyzed. More specifically, a PARAFAC and a PCA model are fitted to the three-way and the two-way data, respectively, restricting the component matrix for the common mode to be equal in both models. Until now, however, no software program has been publicly available to perform such an analysis. Therefore, in this article, the LMPCA program, a free and easy-to-use MATLAB graphical user interface, is presented to perform a linked-mode PARAFAC-PCA analysis. The LMPCA software can be obtained from the authors at http://ppw.kuleuven.be/okp/software/LMPCA. For users who do not have access to MATLAB, a stand-alone version is provided.     

A technique for controlling speech disfluencies induced by delayed auditory feedback

On the basis of cybernetic models of speech it was hypothesized that “stuttering” induced by delayed auditory feedback could be significantly reduced if the Ss were provided with an alternate input to which they could attend. The results of the experiment supported the hypothesis. The possible implications for the treatment stuttering are discussed.     

ADPROCLUS: a graphical user interface for fitting additive profile clustering models to object by variable data matrices

In many areas of psychology, one is interested in disclosing the underlying structural mechanisms that generated an object by variable data set. Often, based on theoretical or empirical arguments, it may be expected that these underlying mechanisms imply that the objects are grouped into clusters that are allowed to overlap (i.e., an object may belong to more than one cluster). In such cases, analyzing the data with Mirkin’s additive profile clustering model may be appropriate. In this model: (1) each object may belong to no, one or several clusters, (2) there is a specific variable profile associated with each cluster, and (3) the scores of the objects on the variables can be reconstructed by adding the cluster-specific variable profiles of the clusters the object in question belongs to. Until now, however, no software program has been publicly available to perform an additive profile clustering analysis. For this purpose, in this article, the ADPROCLUS program, steered by a graphical user interface, is presented. We further illustrate its use by means of the analysis of a patient by symptom data matrix.     

A microprocessor control system and solid state interface for controlling electrophysiological studies of conditioning

This paper describes a microprocessor control system and solid state interface for controlling the apparatus in combined behavioral-electrophysiological studies of conditioning. The computer program, which is designed to control classical conditioning of the rabbit’s nictitating membrane response, provides the flexibility to control all conditioning parameters (e.g., interstimulus and intertrial intervals, trial type, and sequence of trial types) with only minor modifications. The system is free from artifacts that can distort electrophysiological recordings and can easily be modified to accommodate other behavioral paradigms in which electrophysiological responses are recorded.     

The effect of anxiety on linguistic parameters of public speech: A verbal impairment model

This study presents a new research paradigm designed to explore the effect of anxiety on semantic information processing. It is based on the premise that the demonstrated effect of anxiety on cognitive performance and apparent inconsistencies reported in the literature might be better understood in terms of linguistic properties of inner speech which underlies analytic (vs. intuitive) thought processes. The study employed several parameters of functional linguistics in order to analyse properties of public speech by high- and low-anxious individuals. Results indicate that anxiety is associated with greater use of associative clauses that take the speaker further away from the original starting point before coming back and concluding (identified as reduced semantic efficiency). This is accompanied by a speech pattern that includes greater amounts of factual information unaccompanied by elaborate argumentation. While these results are considered tentative due to methodological and empirical shortcomings, they suggest the viability of this approach.     

The commodore 64 and an interface system for controlling operant chambers

This article describes the interfacing of a Commodore 64 computer with an operant chamber. Advantages of the Commodore 64 over the VIC-20 as a controller are listed, and a sample program using dual response levers is given.     

A graphical representation of the mediated effect

Mediation analysis is widely used in the social sciences. Despite the popularity of mediation models, few researchers have used graphical methods, other than structural path diagrams, to represent their models. Plots of the mediated effect can help a researcher better understand the results of the analysis and convey these results to others. This article presents a method for creating and interpreting plots of the mediated effect for a variety of mediation models, including models with (1) a dichotomous independent variable, (2) a continuous independent variable, and (3) an interaction between an independent variable and the mediating variable. An empirical example is then presented to illustrate these plots. Sample code for creating plots of the mediated effect in R and SAS is also included, and may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

The VIC-20 computer and an interface system for controlling operant chambers

In this article, we describe the interfacing of the VIC-20 microcomputer with an operant chamber. An example of an experiment with its corresponding BASIC program is presented.     

A simple graphical method for orthogonal rotation of axes

A simple method of making orthogonal rotations by projecting coordinates from one plot to another is presented. An easily constructed apparatus for rapid and accurate work is described in detail. By the technique proposed 12 to 15 rotations of pairs of axes involving 20 test variables can be completed per hour by a practiced technician.     

A method for the precise switching of speech

A simple procedure by which a speech signal may be switched on or off (or from one ear to the other) at a precise instant of time is described. The speech sample is first recorded on a magnetic tape loop. A reference pulse is then recorded preceding the speech signal. This reference pulse triggers an adjustable time delay which in tum operates an electronic switch at an appropriate time.     

WFORM: A graphical speech-waveform editing and analysis system

A graphical waveform editor for use in speech research applications is described. The editor operates in 32 kwords of main memory on a DEC LSI-11/23 microcomputer under the RSX-11M operating system. The graphics subsystem is a Hewlett-Packard vector graphics controller and display unit. The editor is written in ANSI standard FORTRAN IV to promote portability. WFORM is capable of reading speech files and displaying the contents of these files in either visual or auditory format. In addition, the editor provides the capability to excise arbitrary portions of speech files, concatenate several speech files, and modify the contents of speech files by windowing. Speech analysis is also available in the form of the fast Fourier transform, and a number of windowing techniques are useful for Fourier analysis. The results of the Fourier transform can be displayed either in the form of power spectra or as a rough spectrograph.     

Self-control as a mechanism for controlling aggression: A study in the context of sport competition

Self-control is one of the most important structures of human personality and has been linked to a wide variety of benefits for the individual, and for society. Additionally, self-control has been consistently reported, both empirically and theoretically, as a major disposition in the regulation of aggressive behavior. Taking the advantages of the sport context as a natural environment to study human aggression, this study explored the individual differences in aggressive and anti-social behaviors as function of self-control capacity and gender. Results converged to the idea that athletes with higher levels of self-control capacity seem to be better at controlling aggression, and male athletes tend to be more aggressive. These findings not only support previous laboratory findings, but also suggest the importance of the promotion of self-control capacity as a strategy to control aggression in the domain of sport.     

NAV: A tool for producing presentation quality animations of graphical cognitive model dynamics

Computational models of cognition often exhibit complex dynamics that are difficult to discern without the use of visualization tools. Current tools often provide insight only to the modeling expert, however, and they provide limited functionality for communicating model dynamics to the nonexpert, as is needed during scientific presentations and in educational settings. We present NAV, the Node Activity Visualizer, an easy-to-use and portable software tool that interactively transforms the output of cognitive modeling simulators into presentation quality animations of model performance. nt]mis|The members of the Vanderbilt University Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory for their helpful comments.     

An interface for controlling external devices via the IBM PC/XT/AT parallel port

This article describes the construction and operation of a simple interface to control external devices via the IBM PC/XT/AT’s parallel printer port. The interface is relatively inexpensive and easy to build. It is potentially useful for controlling behavioral experiments.     

A graphical test for the significance of differences between frequencies from different samples

For testing the significance of differences between frequencies from different samples, an ellipse can easily be constructed on the basis of a formula developed on the assumption that both observed samples are random samples from the same parent population and that the best estimate of the true proportion is the weighted mean proportion of the two samples. The ellipse provides a very rapid method for testing pairs of frequencies.The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and are not to be construed as those of the Navy Department.