to sound. Most research in sociolinguistics and dialectology has been based on auditory analysis of data and almost all pronunciation dictionaries are based on impressionistic, auditory analysis of how words are pronounced. It is possible to claim an advantage for auditory analysis over instrumental: Kenneth L. Pike stated "Auditory analysis is essential to phonetic study since the ear can register all those features of sound waves, and only those features, which are above the threshold of audibility ... whereas analysis by instruments must always be checked against auditory reaction". Herbert Pilch attempted to define auditory phonetics in such a way as to avoid any reference to acoustic parameters. In the auditory analysis of phonetic data such as recordings of speech, it is clearly an advantage to have been trained in analytical listening. Practical phonetic training has since the 19th century been seen an essential foundation for phonetic analysis and for the teaching of pronunciation; it is still a significant part of modern phonetics. The best-known type of auditory training has been in the system of cardinal vowels; there is disagreement about the relative importance of auditory and articulatory factors underlying the system, but the importance of auditory training for those who are to use it is indisputable. Training in the auditory analysis of prosodic factors such as pitch and rhythm is also important. Not all research on prosody has been based on auditory techniques: some pioneering work on prosodic features using laboratory instruments was carried out in the 20th century (e.g. Elizabeth Uldall's work using synthesized intonation contours, Dennis Fry's work on stress perception or Daniel Jones's early work on analyzing pitch contours by means of manually operating the pickup arm of a gramophone to listen repeatedly to individual syllables, checking where necessary against a tuning fork),. However, the great majority of work on prosody has been based on auditory analysis until the recent arrival of approaches explicitly based on computer analysis of the acoustic signal, such as ToBI, INTSINT or the IPO system. See also Acoustic phonetics Articulatory phonetics Auditory illusion Auditory processing disorder Auditory system Hearing (sense) Motor theory of speech perception Psychoacoustics Speech perception References Phonetics