Tutorial: Vetting High-Volubility Files

Important Notes

The Goal is not to find the “best” samples, but rather to weed out any instances where the selection algorithm clearly got it wrong.

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Decision-making should be based on your best guess from listening to the sample TWO times.

Each lab will be vetting ~666 wav files pulled from the daylong audio recordings of ~40 children.

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Check with your lab coordinator/supervisor for local wav file storage and procedures.

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The wav files to be vetted can be opened with any available media player (e.g., VLC, Audacity).

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The tracking sheet described in this tutorial is lab specific and can be found below:

Bergelson

Rosemberg

Soderstrom

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Each tracking sheet is a Google spreadsheet and will save your work automatically as you input your responses

Basic Procedure

2-step process:

1. Listen to the 2-minute sample to gain familiarity with the clip and assess general quality.

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• Listen to the 2-minute sample and make note of several selection criteria.

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Remember you should only listen to the clips once during each step.

Getting Started!

Finding a file to review:

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Open the tracking spreadsheet and look to the bottom. You should see a number of different tabs.

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Each tab contains the file information for a different child and space to complete the vetting

Getting Started!

Finding a file to review:

To identify an available tab/child (1 coder to a tab/child), simply check the RA column (column E). If all rows are blank. the tab is available. If there are RA initials, move to the next tab.

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Getting Started! Finding a file to review

Look at the Subject and Clips columns (columns A & B) on the tracking sheet. These columns provide a detailed list of child ID and name of each of the wav files for that child.

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Getting Started! Finding a file to review

‘Click’ on the cell in the clip column for the first blank row (red arrow)

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The full file name is visible on the line the green arrow indicates

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Locate and open the first available wav file by following your lab’s wav file storage procedures. Make sure the file name matches exactly.

Getting Started! Setup

You should resize the windows for the tracking sheet and the media player so that both are visible. It is important the windows are placed side-by-side vertically like shown.

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Getting Started! Setup

Enter your initials on the tracking sheet RA column (column E).

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You are now ready to begin reviewing the file!

Step 1: Assessing General Quality

Listen to the entire 2-minute clip

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Things to Consider

• The first listen is to gain familiarity with the context of the clip.
• Within the 2-minute wav file, is it exclusively electronic media? This is noted on the tracking sheet in the All Media column (column F) with a ‘Y’ or ‘N’.

*If the answer to electronic noise question is “yes”, you can end the review and proceed to the next file. Otherwise, proceed to Step 2.

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Step 1

Example:

the spreadsheet will look something like this after you finish listening to the full 2-minute context segment:

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Overview of Procedure for Step 2

During a second listening of the two-minute clip, you will do your best to tally or “count up”:

1. The number of target child vocalizations (NOT crying, laughing, or eating-related sounds)
2. Are the majority (>50%) of child vocalizations clearly attributable to the target child
3. The number of adult-child or child-adult turns (any young child)
4. The number of adult vocalizations (any adult)

*Remember this is a rough estimate--DO NOT take time to carefully consider your counts.

Step 2

Step 2 involves listening a second time to the 2-minute clip for some specific selection criteria

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The tracking sheet provides a basic format to to tally occurrences of the specific criteria and will indicate if the clip satisfies the individual criteria

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Important Note: The tracking sheet provides the target child’s age (column D) to ease in differentiating the target child from other children.

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Step 2a: Assessing High-Child Voc Count

• Are there at least 5 vocalizations that should reasonably be attributed to the target child?
• Vocalizations are defined as instances of canonical and noncanonical babbling or speech.
• Note: laughing, crying, shushing, and vegetative sounds do not count
• For detailed instructions on the classifications please see this tutorial
• The spreadsheet has 5 tally columns (e.g., CHI1, CHI2). For each time you hear a child vocalization, place a “1” in one of the columns (i.e. one “1” per vocalization”).
• Are roughly >50% of all the child vocalizations in the clip attributable to the target child?
• Label “Y” for yes or “N” for no under “50% CHI” column

Example of the spreadsheet:

Each time you hear the target child make a vocalization place “1” in a tally column (e.g., CHI1, CHI5). If place a 1 in every tally column, and thus run out of CHI columns, you can stop logging this criteria.

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At the end of the clip, make an determination if the child vocalizations from the clip were predominantly (~50%) generated by the target child where the red arrow indicates.

Step 2b: Assessing “High Child-Adult Turn Taking”

• Tracking adult-child or child-adult turns
• A turn here is defined as an adult speaking followed by the target child speaking OR the target child speaking followed by an adult
• “Followed by” is defined loosely--it should occur within 2 seconds of the previous utterance and should have some degree of conversational character
• Response utterances that partially overlap the initial utterances can count
• Place a “1” in the turn taking tally columns for each child-adult turn taking instance.

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Example of the spreadsheet:

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Each time you hear an instance of child-adult or adult-child turn taking place “1” in a tally column (e.g., CA1, CA5). If place a 1 in every tally column, you can stop logging this criteria.

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Step 2c: Assessing “High Adult Speech”

• Are there at least 5 “near and clear” adult utterances?
• Place a “1” in the Adult Utterances tally columns (A1-A5) for any instance of clear adult speech. If place a 1 in every tally column, you can stop logging this criteria.

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Step 2 complete: Now what?

Now that step 2 is complete, look at the Stop Rule column on the of the tracking sheet (Column AF).

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If the row you just completed says ‘Proceed’, move onto the next file and repeat Steps 1 & 2. If the Stop Rule Column says ’Stop’, congratulations you have finished the vetting process for this child.

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Now what?

Continue this vetting process until all of the tabs assigned to your lab have been vetted.

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Acknowledgements

This tutorial was made possible by the significant contributions of:

Dr. Melanie Soderstrom

Dr. John Bunce

Kaitlyn Dyer

Additional support provided by:

Dr. Elika Bergelson

Dr. Celia Rosemberg

Dr. Middy Casillas

Gladys Baudet

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