DiapixUK: task materials for the elicitation of multiple spontaneous speech dialogs

Abstract

The renewed focus of attention on investigating spontaneous speech samples in speech and language research has increased the need for recordings of speech in interactive settings. The DiapixUK task is a new and extended set of picture materials based on the Diapix task by Van Engen et al. (Language and Speech, 53, 510-540, 2010), where two people are recorded while conversing to solve a 'spot the difference' task. The new task materials allow for multiple recordings of the same speaker pairs due to a larger set of picture pairs that have a number of tested features: equal difficulty across all 12 picture pairs, no learning effect of completing more than one picture task and balanced contributions from both speakers. The new materials also provide extra flexibility, making them useful in a wide range of research projects; they are multi-layered electronic images that can be adapted to suit different research needs. This article presents details of the development of the DiapixUK materials, along with data taken from a large corpus of spontaneous speech that are used to demonstrate its new features. Current and potential applications of the task are also discussed.Keywords Speech corpora . Spontaneous speech . Test design Speech produced during an interaction differs from read speech in lexical and grammatical content (e.g. Blauuw, 1994), in segmental phonetic characteristics and in prosodic characteristics (e.g. Lann & Van Bergem, 1993), which explains why these two speech styles are perceptually distinguishable even if they contain the same speech material. Despite these differences, many studies still use read speech to investigate research topics such as the acoustic-phonetic characteristics of different speaking styles. Undoubtedly, spontaneous interactive speech recordings are challenging to process and analyse, but the increased ability to generalise results from these data to naturally occurring speech makes this challenge worth overcoming. Of the studies that have investigated interactive speech, many have used problem-solving tasks to elicit speech in a controlled setting, in an attempt to record conversations with similar topics and structures. This article describes the development of a set of materials (DiapixUK) which extend the recently developed Diapix task (Van Engen et al., 2010)-an easy way to collect spontaneous dialogs between two speakers, while having some control over the lexical content of the discourse. The task involves two people conversing to find differences between two versions of the same picture. The three picture pairs designed by Van Engen et al. are suited to American English participants, and the picture content cannot be easily altered. The new DiapixUK picture materials make this methodology suitable to the needs of a wider range of researchers and are also potentially suitable for use in clinical settings. The 12 new picture pairs, which have been standardised and shown to be of equal difficulty, provide ample material for the elicitation of interactive speech over...

Are Assumptions of Well-Known Statistical Techniques Checked, and Why (Not)?

“…It seems important to consider how statistical education can be improved to draw attention to the place of checking for assumptions in statistics and how to deal with possible violations (including deciding to use unconditional techniques). Requiring that authors describe how they checked for the violation of assumptions when the techniques applied are not robust to violations would, as Bakker and Wicherts (2011) have proposed, force researchers on both ends of the publishing process to show more awareness of this important issue.…”

Statistical Conclusion Validity: Some Common Threats and Simple Remedies

“…Similarly, García-Pérez (2005) reviewed alternative methods to compute confidence intervals for proportions and discussed three papers (among many others that reportedly could have been chosen) in which inadequate confidence intervals had been computed. More recently, Bakker and Wicherts (2011) conducted a thorough analysis of psychological papers and estimated that roughly 50% of published papers contain reporting errors, although they only checked whether the reported p value was correct and not whether the statistical test used was appropriate. A similar analysis carried out by Nieuwenhuis et al (2011) revealed that 50% of the papers reporting the results of a comparison of two experimental effects in top neuroscience journals had used an incorrect statistical procedure.…”

Characterising F(0) contour shape in infant- and foreigner-directed speech

“…We mentioned earlier that Murray and Arnott (1993) have highlighted the difficulties of the 'trade off' between the 'realism' of speech and the necessity of controlled content in speech research, and that the desirability of using spontaneous speech in research has also been acknowledged by Smiljanic and Bradlow (2005). Recently, there have been attempts at providing tasks that elicit spontaneous speech whilst retaining some degree of control in the form of target words (e.g., Diapix task; Van Engen et al, 2010, and the DiapixUk task, which is an extension of the original Diapix task; Baker and Hazan, 2011). The use of these tasks has already been successfully implemented in forensic speech research (e.g.…”