The Speech Sounds Lab, under the direction of Dr. Cynthia Kilpatrick, is one of the newest additions to the Linguistics and TESOL facilities. The purpose of the Lab is to provide appropriate space for experimentation with the sounds of speech. One major component of the lab is a sound attenuated booth (in this case, a WhisperRoom), necessary for both production and perception experiments. The WhisperRoom blocks ambient noise in order to produce the clearest recordings possible, and creates a quiet area where participants in perception experiments will not be distracted by noises around them, thus better allowing them to concentrate on listening to the sounds of the experiments in which they are participating.
In addition to the booth, the lab hosts computer workstations for researchers to use for speech segmentation, transcription, and manipulation, as well as for statistical analysis. A separate sound station is dedicated to use with recordings and experiments in the booth.
