Franklin H. Silverman

Loci of Disfluencies in the Speech of Stutterers

A group of 15 male stutterers read a 1000-word passage. Words spoken disfluently were analyzed for the presence of Browns four word characteristics. The same pattern of loci of occurrence was observed as was reported by Brown in a similar study in which the analyses were based on stuttering counts rather than on disfluency counts. Several implications of this finding are discussed.

An Approach to Determining the Number of Judges Needed for Scaling Experiments

A solution is suggested to the problem of determining the optimum size for a judging panel. It involves the application of the principle of sequential sampling.

Equal-appearing interval scale values and successive interval scale values derived from the same set of ratings.

Both equal-appearing interval scale values and successive interval scale values were computed for each of five sets of ratings on five different kinds of stimuli. The scale values obtained by these two methods rank ordered almost identically the stimuli which were scaled. For all five sets of ratings, the Pearson r for estimating the relationship between the two sets of scale values was equal to or greater than .99. In view of the close relationship between the scale values derived by the two methods, practical considerations would make the method of equal-appearing intervals the preferable one for many purposes.