NZILBB Researchers have access to an excellent range of research equipment, which is distributed across our associated departments and local partners. In addition to these, NZILBB itself has its own centralised research facilities. These includes some equipment which are not available anywhere else in New Zealand.
NZILBB Sound Booth
NZILBB houses a sound-treated sound booth with portable recording equipment. We use this room for collecting stimuli and undertaking some listening experiments.
NZILBB Electroencephalography Lab (EEG)
One of the Institute’s aims is to explore how language and speech are processed by the brain. A strand of research in this area in the EEG Lab is identifying neurophysiological correlates of children’s language development. By investigating how children’s brains process linguistic stimuli of various kinds, new insights into the process of language acquisition will be gained and new light will be shed on children who have difficulty developing language.
The Lottery Health Research Committee of the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board awarded funding to purchase a 64 channel EEG system. The system is a BioSemi Active Two Mark II 64 + 8 + 2 channel EEG/ERP/EMG/EOG. The stimulus presentation is by e-Prime and data analysis with Brain Products’ Professional Analyzer 2 software. This system allows a continuous EEG recording of brain activity in response to visual or auditory stimuli.
The Lab is overseen by Dr Catherine Theys and is located in the School of Psychology, Speech and Hearing.
Northern Digital WAVE electromagnetic articulography (EMA) system
EMA is a no-line-of-sight motion capture system specifically designed for tracking speech related articulatory to orofacial movements (such as tongue movements).
It provides a non-invasive measurement system in which the subject is free to move naturally during the experiment.
GE Ultrasound System
This machine is used to track the movmenets of the tongue. We are the only research group currently in New Zealand using an ultrasound for speech research. The compact portable ultrasound machine has a cardioid probe (8C-RS) wide band micro convex transducer. The frame grabber is AV.IO Epiphan (HDMI USB). The machine also has a Sennheiser (MKH-416) shotgun microphone.
Tobii Eye Tracker X120
The Tobii X120 is a highly accurate standalone system, featuring a 120Hz sampling rate it captures natural human eye movements without requiring participants to wear headgear or glasses. Near infrared illumination is used to create the reflection patterns on the cornea and pupil of the eye of a user and two image sensors are used to capture images of the eyes and the reflection patterns.
