PERCEVAL: a Computer-Driven System for Experimentation on Auditory and Visual Perception

Abstract: Since perception tests are highly time-consuming, there is a need to automate as many operations as possible, such as stimulus generation, procedure control, perception testing, and data analysis. The computer-driven system we are presenting here meets these objectives. To achieve large flexibility, the tests are controlled by scripts. The system's core software resembles that of a lexical-syntactic analyzer, which reads and interprets script files sent to it. The execution sequence (trial) is modified in accordance with the commands and data received. This type of operation provides a great deal of flexibility and supports a wide variety of tests such as auditory-lexical decision making, phoneme monitoring, gating, phonetic categorization, word identification, voice quality, etc. To achieve good performance, we were careful about timing accuracy, which is the greatest problem in computerized perception tests.