Runword: An IBM-PC software package for the ... - Springer Link

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hind each measure, as well as the software to support digitized naming experiments. The software ... experiment running, acoustic analysis, and error coding,.
Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers 1998,30 (3),371-383

Runword: An IBM-PC software package for the collection and acoustic analysis of speeded naming responses CHRISTOPHER T. KELLO Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and ALAN H. KAWAMOTO University of California, Santa Cruz, California Researchers generally collect two dependent measures from most types of speeded responses: reaction time and error proportion. Recently, experimenters have tested lexical theories using alternative empirical measures, such as response force in decision tasks and response duration in naming tasks. Weoffer a set of software tools that expands the battery of dependent measures normally available to naming experimenters to include various duration and intensity measures of digitized voice recordings. This article explains the functionality, programming logic, and theoretical motivation behind each measure, as well as the software to support digitized naming experiments. The software runs in DOSon IBM-PC-compatible hardware with SoundBlaster 16-bitsound cards, and it takes advantage of the decreasing costs of hard-drive space and digital sound cards. The speeded naming response is a primary tool that psycho linguists use to investigate cognitive processes, such as lexical access from a printed word or picture. The experimenter typically asks the subject to name a target stimulus (in some context, perhaps) out loud as quickly and accurately as possible, and two dependent measures are collected for each response: naming latency and proportion of errors. Recently, researchers have begun to use other measures, such as response duration, in order to test competing predictions in more detail (Abrams & Balota, 1991; Balota, Boland, & Shields, 1989; Monsell, Patterson, Graham, Hughes, & Milroy, 1992). This article describes a suite of software tools called Runword that supports the collection, digitization, storage, and analysis of naming responses to visual and auditory stimuli. The software runs under DOS on IBM-PC-compatible hardware with a SoundBlaster 16-bit sound card and an EGAlVGA video display adapter. Runword improves and expands upon the standard naming apparatus to include automatic calculation of various temporal duration and spectral measures of the traditional speeded naming response, as well as the postvocalic naming response (described below). The configuration that we offer takes advantage ofthe deThe authors would like to thank Jorg Beringer, Darrell Butler, Marc Brysbaert, and Roger Graves for the helpful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript. The authors would also like to thank John Birchfield, Mark Goettche, Richard Rasulis, Tony Robinson, and Leonid Spektor for making code freely available for use in this software package. The Runword source code, executables, and manual can be downloaded from http://www.cnbc.cmu.edu/-kello. Correspondence should be addressed to C. T. Kello, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (e-mail: kello+@ andrew.cmu.edu).

creasing prices of high-speed CPUs (> 60 MHz), largecapacity hard drives (> 1 GB), and high-quality digital sound cards (16-bit sampling). Runword contains three main executable programs for experiment running, acoustic analysis, and error coding, respectively. It also includes three auxiliary programs for file conversion and compression. This article outlines our motivation for building each function into Runword, and it details the logic and procedures that each algorithm embodies. We also demonstrate the validity of the algorithms' calculations by comparing their performance with subjective measurements on a sample set of naming responses. We explain the hardware and functional requirements of our software, but we do not go into length here about how the user installs and runs the software. To supplement, we provide a user manual with the executables and source code that explains the specifics of installation, parameter setting, execution, and output interpretation. We are offering the Runword software and a softcopy of the manual for free to the academic community (see Author Note for details). Technical support can be negotiated on an individual basis. The full capabilities of Runword require the following: A 286 or higher CPU IBM-PC-compatible running DOS, Windows, or Windows 95 (the software will run in DOS mode on all these platforms), a SoundBlaster 16-bit sound card with the appropriate drivers installed in DOS (Runword provides drivers and instructions for this), a video adapter that supports EGAlVGA mode, and a minimal amount ofharddisk space for the executables and manual (i.e.,