COLLECTION OF TEMPORAL DATA WITH THE DURATION TABULATOR 1

Abstract

During an investigation of possibly useful measures of the physical dimensions of vocal behavior, we wished to obtain the distribution of the durations of units of speech. In an early paper, Chapple (1940) claimed that stable differences exist between subjects in the characteristics of this distribution. Although a good many studies have since been pub- lished which use Chapple's Interaction Chronograph, there has been little description of the distribution of durations. One reason for this is undoubtedly the extensive time usually necessary to obtain the distribution, a fact which is especially well-known to one of us (Hargreaves, 1955). Verzeano and Finesinger (1949) have described an analyzer which presents the distribu- tion of durations automatically on a series of counters. Their distribution differs, however, from that obtained by other workers. This difference, at least in part, is an artifact due to the use of arbitrary delay in order to define the length of an utterance. Their analyzer was published in block-diagram form, and was a starting point for the apparatus to be described here. APPARATUS