Collection of Temporal Data With the Duration Tabulator¹

During an investigation of possibly useful measures of the physical dimensions of vocal behavior, we wished to obtain the distribution of the durations of units of speech. In an early paper, Chapple (1940) claimed that stable differences exist between subjects in the characteristics of this distribution. Although a good many studies have since been pub- lished which use Chapple's Interaction Chronograph, there has been little description of the distribution of durations. One reason for this is undoubtedly the extensive time usually necessary to obtain the distribution, a fact which is especially well-known to one of us