Sort Board for Random Access of Auditory Stimuli

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Abstract
An apparatus is described that allows subjects to initiate presentation of auditory stimuli at random and to sort, rank, or otherwise arrange the stimuli in a two-dimensional array. The system consists of (1) a square board with 256 holes; (2) a set of up to 36 freely movable control pegs; (3) a general-purpose DDP-516 computer; (4) a random rapid-access disk. When a subject presses down on a peg placed in any of the holes, the computer identifies the peg and presents an auditory stimulus. In a pilot study using this system, subjects were asked to arrange two-parameter complex tones so that proximity of pegs on the board reflected similarity. The tones were stored on disk in digital form. The computer identified the peg, retrived from disk the stimulus assigned to that peg, and updated a CRT display containing an image of the board and the location of each peg at last operation. A chronological history of the subject's performance, including the sequence of stimulus presentation, location of the peg at each operation, and the interval between successive stimulus presentations, was recorded on digital tape.

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