We told you in March about William Rudling, the cartoonist and Procartoonists.org member who is one of four finalists in Radio 4’s So You Want to be a Scientist? He recently took his Faces and Voices experiment to the Bang Goes the Theory roadshow in Sheffield. Here is his report:
The warm welcome and friendly support we got from the visitors to the Interactive Zone, where the first Faces and Voices experiment was carried out, more than made up for the weather which lived up to its promise – no sunshine and it was cold!
We had 880 participants during the three days of the event. Each saw two sets of photos in the first part of the survey. Looking at the first row of three faces, they had to decide which of the first two faces looked like the third.
In the second part, participants had to decide which of the two faces was a good match to the voice they were hearing, reciting a Mark Twain quote:
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Listening to the quote helps us to understand how the larynx works and adjust to create different sounds in the text; for example the words explore, dream and discover.
The data taken from the Sheffield event [above, held on the May Bank Holiday weekend] will help us enormously and I would like to thank all those who took part.
Anyone who couldn’t take part can still do so by using the
Faces and Voices website
