Secure account-based data capture with smartphone – preliminary results from a study of articulatory precision in clinical depression

Abstract

Smartphones provide an attractive way of sourcing data for linguistic researchers, potentially collecting recordings in more natural environments and thus with higher ecological validity than recordings made in a recording studio or similar setting. The hardware itself offers several advantages over standardized recording equipment, including a wide range of embedded sensors, intuitive user interface, large memory storage and computational power for recording and processing information (Dogan et al. 2017; Lane et al. 2010). In addition to this, the ubiquity and popularity of these devices allow unparalleled access to individuals and can be easily integrated into daily lives as a non-invasive, cost-efficient method of sampling and monitoring objective data. This article introduces a smartphone app for the secure collection of phonetic data and demonstrates its use in a pilot study of articulatory precision of depressed speech.