This award provides funds to the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences at the University of Arizona to acquire modern transducer systems and two MacIntosh workstations to create virtual instruments to support three laboratory courses in communication sciences. The courses are SP H 260 - Speech Science, SP H 280 - Hearing Science, and SP H 461 Instrumentation in Speech Science. The transducer systems include (a) pneumotachographs, (b) an electroglottograph, and (c) magnetometers. An additional transducer system will support the generation of high quality acoustical stimuli for laboratory exercises in auditory perception. The core instrumentation, the computer workstations, will be configured with appropriate analog to digital and digital to analog hardware to enable the students to obtain spectral analyses, fundamental frequency contours, and sound pressure level measurements of speech, and permanent written records of air pressure/flow, electroglottograph and magnetometer outputs, and electrophysiological signals. The Hearing Science laboratories will employ the instrumentation in adaptive psychophysical protocols to enable the students to investigate auditory perception using modern methods. The virtual instruments and transducers will replace dedicated apparatus that is aging, unsupported, and unadaptable to modern, computer-based data collection and analysis methods. The grantee is matching this award with non-Federal sources.
