When visually impaired students attend regular high school, additional materials are necessary to help them understand physics concepts. The time for teachers to develop teaching materials for such students is scarce. Visually impaired students in regular high school physics classes often use a braille version of the physics textbook. Previously,…

Although previous research has demonstrated the efficacy of recasts on second language (L2) morphology and lexis (e.g., Li, 2010; Mackey & Goo, 2007), few studies have examined their effect on learners' phonological development (although see Saito, 2015; Saito & Lyster, 2012). The current study investigates the impact of recasts on the…

Purpose: To determine if children with repaired cleft palate and normal velopharyngeal (VP) closure as determined by aerodynamic testing exhibit greater acoustic nasalance than control children without cleft palate. Method: Pressure-flow procedures were used to identify 2 groups of children based on VP closure during the production of /p/ in the…

While I was co-teaching an introductory course in musical acoustics a few years ago, our class investigated several pieces of equipment designed for audio purposes. One piece of such equipment was a pair of noise-canceling headphones. Our students were curious as to how these devices were in eliminating background noise and whether they indeed…

Two computer-assisted experiments are described: (i) determination of the speed of ultrasound waves in water and (ii) measurement of the thermal expansion of an aluminum-based alloy. A new data-acquisition system developed by PASCO scientific is used. In both experiments, the "Keep" mode of recording data is employed: the data are…

Selective attention in the presence of distraction is a key aspect of healthy cognition. The underlying neurobiological processes, have not, however, been functionally well characterized. In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine how ecologically relevant distracting noise affects cortical activity in 27…

Purpose: Common wisdom suggests that listening in noise poses disproportionately greater difficulty for listeners with cochlear implants (CIs) than for peers with normal hearing (NH). The purpose of this study was to examine phonological, language, and cognitive skills that might help explain speech-in-noise abilities for children with CIs.…

Being able to record the work of young musicians is beneficial on a number of levels. From an educational standpoint, listening to recordings of rehearsals and performances can provide students with many different opportunities for critical evaluation and enhanced learning. The growth of digital music distribution in the past decade has sparked a…

Accurately timing acoustic events in dynamic scenes is fundamental to scene analysis. To detect events in busy scenes, listeners must often identify a change in the "pattern" of ongoing fluctuation, resulting in many ubiquitous events being detected later than when they occurred. This raises the question of how delayed detection time affects the…

The influence of bubbles on sound has long attracted the attention of physicists. In his 1920 book Sir William Bragg described sound absorption caused by foam in a glass of beer tapped by a spoon. Frank S. Crawford described and analyzed the change in the pitch of sound in a similar experiment and named the phenomenon the "hot chocolate effect."…

Resonance refers to the vibrations of larger amplitude that are produced under the effect of a harmonic driving force. Although resonance is an essential concept behind many events happening in nature, students usually have difficulty in learning and explaining the phenomenon. Various demonstrations are carried out in physics classes to clarify…

Background: In English- and German-speaking countries, ataxic speech is often described as showing scanning based on acoustic impressions. Although the term "scanning" is generally considered to represent abnormal speech features including prosodic excess or insufficiency, any precise acoustic analysis of ataxic speech has not been…

In this study, an educational tool has been prepared for obtaining short-term and more economic training on digital speckle shearography (DSS). Shearography non-destructive testing (NDT) has gained wide acceptance over the last decade, providing a number of important and exciting inspection solutions in aerospace, electronics and medical device…

In a series of seven studies, this paper examines acoustic characteristics of the spontaneous speech production of the English dative alternation ("gave the book to the boy/ the boy the book") as a function of the probability of the choice between alternating constructions. Probabilistic effects on the acoustic duration were observed in the…

Are there consistent markers of atypical prosody in speakers with high functioning autism (HFA) compared to typically-developing speakers? We examined: (1) acoustic measurements of pitch range, mean pitch and speech rate in conversation, (2) perceptual ratings of conversation for these features and overall prosody, and (3) acoustic measurements of…