Seeking a reading machine for the blind and discovering the speech code

A machine that can read printed material to the blind became a priority at the end of World War II with the appointment of a U.S. Government committee to instigate research on sensory aids to improve the lot of blinded veterans. The committee chose Haskins Laboratories to lead a multisite research program. Initially, Haskins researchers overestimated the capacities of users to learn an acoustic code based on the letters of a text, resulting in unsuitable designs. Progress was slow because the researchers clung to a mistaken view that speech is a sound alphabet and because of persisting gaps in man-machine technology. The tortuous route to a practical reading machine transformed the scientific understanding of speech perception and reading at Haskins Labs and elsewhere, leading to novel lines of basic research and new technologies. Research at Haskins Laboratories made valuable contributions in clarifying the physical basis of speech. Researchers recognized that coarticulatory overlap eliminated the possibility of alphabet-like discrete acoustic segments in speech. This work advanced the study of speech perception and contributed to our understanding of the relation of speech perception to production. Basic findings on speech enabled the development of speech synthesis, part science and part technology, essential for development of a reading machine, which has found many applications. Findings on the nature of speech further stimulated a new understanding of word recognition in reading across languages and scripts and contributed to our understanding of reading development and reading disabilities.