Intro to CASA Coding Group

• Develop skills that make it easier to do our job well as speech researchers
• Create a community that comes together to make it easier to learn this stuff

Computer Coding: Writing something in a language a computer can understand in order to tell the computer to do a specific thing or set of things.

Why bother telling a computer what to do when we can just do it ourselves?

Why bother telling a computer what to do when we can just do it ourselves?

• Automate repetitive tasks like…
  • opening/closing/saving files
• Minimize human error in data preparation
  • Renaming things in a spreadsheet
• Keep a careful log of how we did our analyses
  • Code = instructions
• “Reproducible research”
• Fun! (seriously!)

• Website: https://casa-lab.com/coding-group/
• Slack channel: https://casa-lab-ub.slack.com/
  • Invite to join Slack channel (I will send this out via email after today)

Coding: Writing in a language a computer can understand

Scripting: A type of coding that tells a specific program exactly what actions to take

Programming: Writing code that serves to actually create another program (an app, software, etc)

Scripts: Text files containing code.

• Scripting, coding, and programming are sometimes used interchangeably

Functions: A certain named format of code that outlines a procedure. Often this allows several lines of code to be executed with a single line of code (by using the name of the function)

• For example, in Excel, you may use functions like =sum(2,2). sum() is the function that takes input (in this case, numbers), and performs an a specific action (adds them).

Calling: Invoke a function by using the name of the function and specifying parameters.

• For example: I “call the sum function” when I type it out with its inputs and execute it in excel.

1. R and R Studio
2. Praat

• “R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics.”
• Download here

• RStudio is a handy interface that helps you use R.
• Download Desktop version

• “Doing phonetics by computer”: Praat is a powerful software program that also has its own specialized language for writing scripts
• Praat = “Speech” in Dutch
• Looks like it hasn’t been updated since 1995 but it has and it’s great
• “World’s worst programming language”
  • don’t let the haters get you down
• Download here

Example: Starbucks data

1. Start with a data set you have in Excel
2. “Read” it into R
3. Do things to it like…

• Instantly calculate means values

Let’s look together

1_prep_data.R

###################################################
# Helper script for analyzing Starbucks drink data
###################################################

# Setup ----

# Load packages that contain functions we will use
library(tidyverse)
library(plyr)

# Load data ----
starbucks <- read.csv("1_materials/starbucks_drinkMenu_expanded.csv")

1_prep_data.R

# Create new columns ----
# Create a "caffeine" column that is numeric
starbucks <- starbucks %>%
        mutate(caffeine = revalue(caffeine,replace = c(
                                  "varies" = NA, "Varies" = NA)),
               caffeine_num = as.numeric(as.character(caffeine)))

# Is caffeine content over 100 mg? If so, label it "YES", otherwise, "NO"
starbucks <- starbucks %>%
        mutate(too_much_caffeine = ifelse(caffeine_num > 100, "YES", "NO"))

starbucks %>% select(caffeine_num, too_much_caffeine) %>% head()

2_figures.R

Using R Markdown to write:

• Notes & reports
• Papers, articles, theses
• Presentations (like this one!)
• Websites, blog posts!

R Markdown allows you to incorporate code AND regular text using simple “markdown” syntax (more on that later).

For example…

• Automatically create TextGrids for all .wav files in a directory
• Automatically adjust Praat TextGrid boundaries for all files in a directory

Intelligibility experiment in Praat

This is where you’ll edit and run your scripts.

This is where code, error messages, warnings, etc. show up when you run code

Here you can see…

1. Files in your directory (“Files”)
2. Variables in your environment ("Environment)

• This is anything you have created in R.
• Saving your work to a script allows you to recreate these variables again later.

• This is where plots you create will show up when you call them (automatically in “Plots”)
• You can also…
  • search help documentation (“Help”)
  • search for packages (“Packages”)

My thoughts:

• Next three meet ups: R
• Final meet ups: Praat

Potential meet up flow: Basic skill + fun skill per meet up

• Intro to R/R Markdown + Using emoji in R
• Cleaning data + Making boxplots
• Making figures in R + Making animated figures in R!

Break up into small groups for a couple of minutes to discuss what you would like to see at this group

Try this:

1. Sign up for an account on udemy.com

2. Sign up for the “R basics: R programming language” course on udemy

3. Watch videos 1, 2, 3, and 9.

• 1 - R basics (3 min)
• 2 - A walkthrough of downloading R & Rstudio (5 min)
• 3 - the Rstudio interface (19 min)
• 9 - Three common mistakes in R beginners (11 min)