An automatic analysis method of utterance and pause lengths and frequencies

Automatic analysis of the lengths and frequencies of utterance and pauses is highly desirable in the study of large amounts of speech produced by pathologic speakers and of interactive speech such as that between mother and child, clinician and client, and teacher and student. This paper describes a microcomputer-based analysis method of utterance and pause lengths and frequencies in connected speech. The instrumentation consists of a rectifier-smoother circuit, an analog-to-digital convertor and an Apple microcomputer. The printouts list utterances and pauses (in milliseconds) in the order of occurrence, and means and standard deviations of the utterances and pauses. The program and the results of reliability and validity tests of this method are described.