IUE~~~~~ ~THlE MICUIGAN DAILY 1 EN~l U
VFDN*ESDAT, 3171:
ospital Remodels Food Service
AT FRIEZE BLDG.:
S peech Lab Has Anechoic Chamber
By CLIARLAINE AUKER I.AN
"It's so quiet in here that I can
h ar my heart b ating" might be
the reac ion of a p rson Isolated
in the anechoic, or echol s , chain-
be , one of the ma n facilities of
the Departm nt of Speech's new
Speech Researci La oratory.
Lhcated in the basement of the
new section of the Frieze Building,
the laboratory Is devoted to basic
theoretical and applied studies in1
speech, phonetics, linguistics and
human communication.
These areas encompass research
from the physiology of speech pro-
duction and the acoustical analysis
of speech waves to new technique
in recording and the automatic
analysis and synthesis of speech.
Activities Include
The range of the laboratory's
activities also includes course in-
struction in the analytical and ex-
perimental study of speech and
language to undergraduate and
graduate students In the speech~
department as well as the sponsor-
ship of guest lecturers.
The facilities of the Speech Re-
search Laboratory now include a
physiology laboratory, a general
acoistics laboratory, a research
laboratory, a shop where many re-
search instruments are built, andj
eequlpment room and seminar and
office space,.
In addition, the Laboratory has
special acoustical chambers.
The smaller of the two rooms is
a well-isolated recording and lis-
tening room. Padded with a six-
inch layer ofiberglass blan
thne chamber is fui7rher sound-
proofed by its construction on a
fiber block set apart from the rest
of the building,
Resembles Radfio Studio
The recording room resembles!
a, radio studio in appearance and
is used for making high quality re-
cordings, free from any outside
noises,.
The larger of the acoustics
chaimbers s the anechoic chamber,
one of the few of i kind in the
country. Not only is the room
soundproof, but it is also echo-
proof,
The chamber is situated within
another larger room in order to
obtain a high degree of sound iso-
lation. The outside room is con-
structed of solid concrte blocks,
with a special sounlproof door. In
this outer room are the controls
for the equipment and instruments
found in the enclosed chamber,
Chamber Separate
The anechoic chamber is a
completely separate room mounted
within the outer room. Measuring
approximately 22 feet in length,
15 feet in width and 17 feet in
height, and weighing close to 100
tons, the entire room is construct-
ed on a heavy slab of reinforced
concrete.
This slab, in turn, is mounted
on a four-inch blanket of dense
Prof. Joi r
To Give Talk
Prof. Charles W. Joiner of the
Law School will address the con-
ference of the Fourth Judicial
Circuit in Hot Springs, Va., today.
He will discuss the need for uni-
formrules of evidence in federal
COut1's.
ANEC HOIC CHAMBER-- Speech 222 students Paul Powilson,
Grad., and May Morrison, Grad.,calibrate the loud speaker in
the anechoic chamber using controls in the outer room. The
largest of the acoustical chambers utilized in the University's
Speech Research Laboratory, this chamber is one of the few of
its kind in the world.
fiber-glass, enabling the room to quality of the chamber, Chapma
"float" separately from the rest continued, creates a situatki
of the building. similar to that found in the uppc
On the ceiling, the floor and the atmosphere, where a lack of phy5
walls of the room, the fiber-glass ical objects eliminates the poss
blankets are mounted on an array bility of sound-reflecting surface
of aluminum pipes. The placement Research Conducted
of the pipes gives the ceiling and A more earthly atmosphere t
walls an appearance of long, deep clicking instruments is found
wedges, in which the sound waves the other laboratories, where rn
are trapped, search is currently being conduc
Grill Covers Series ed. One of the problems they ai
trying to solve is the synthesis
.A removable metal grill covers speech from a series of discre
the series of wedges on the floor, sounds.
permitting people to enter the The Laboratory is also conduc
room without being engulfed, like ing basic research on the aute
the sound waves, in the deep de- matic analysis of speech, whic
pressions- would permit the control of ma
The anechoic chamber will be chines by means of spoken instrui
used for many types of basic tions.
acoustical measurements, such as The ultimate, practical objecti%
standardizing and testing the of this work would be an auti
range and accuracy of acoustical matic speech typewriter, whi.
equipment used in the laboratory. could type out the speech spoke
As it is the only chamber of its to it through a microphone.
k ind at the University and prob--- --
ably in the state, it is anticipated
that it will be used by various
groups in the science fields.
According to William D. Chap-
man, supervising engineer, the
chamber will probably prove use-
ful in psychological perception
tests. JE
Silence Absolute
He himself noted that some stu- 717 NORTH U
dents who toured the Laboratory
at the ibeining of the semester WEST OF I
:found the absoluite silence in the 4
room quite a disconcerting experi-
ence, - ~ ~___________
The complete absence of sound - - -
caused them to hear things which
they would not ordinarily hear,
such as their breathing and heart-
beat, which are usually masked
by the everyday noises that we
continually encounter.
The soundproof and echo-proof LONG
DISTANCE
-MOVING
wonderfully whimsical wood block prints
OPENING July 2, 8-10 P.M. - continuing thru July 17
Summer hours: 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Tuesday thru Friday
FORSYTHE GALLERY
201 Nickels'Arcade .. . over the Post Office
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NOTICE!
Do You Know That a Typewriter
Can Be Rented By the Half Hour
On Each Floor of the
Undergraduate Library?
MORRI L'S
oni____
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ENTERTAINING PROBLEMS?
SEE US FOR
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