Microphone recommendation

[Nathan Maxfield]

I've used the E-prime voice key, and one way I've been able to get more 
reliable speech reaction times are by using a pre-amp in conjunction with 
the voice key.  We had participants name pictures using a carrier phrase 
(e.g., "say [picture name]").  We connected the mic to a small preamplifier, 
and the preamp to the E-prime voice key.  Before testing, we calibrated each 
speaker by asking them to say some examples at their typical speaking 
loudness, and we adjusted the pre-amp until we got what we felt were 
reliable voice key triggers to the word "say".  We still had some error 
during testing (due to coughing, clicks, etc), but the pre-amp and carrier 
phrase approach helped to reduce these types of mis-triggers quite a bit.  
If you wanted to avoid the carrier phrase, I suppose having a pre-amp and 
calibrating each participant beforehand would still help to some extent.

Best,
Nathan Maxfield
University of South Florida
formerly at the CUNY Graduate Center, Doctoral Program in Speech & Hearing 
Sciences