Digital Simulation in Research on Human Communication

Digital simulation is a powerful tool in uncovering the basic properties of new or proposed communications principles, particularly those involving coding of visual or auditory information. Operating on digitalized speech or pictorial signals, a stored program computer can perform processing equivalent to any coding. The output signals so produced can then be made available for subjective evaluation, thereby removing the necessity for premature instrumentation to produce samples for viewing or listening. This technique owes its efficacy to 1) the availability of computers fast enough to accomplish the processing in a reasonable time scale, 2) the existence of high quality translators to implement the flow of continuous signals in and out of the computer, and 3) the creation of compiling programs which allow uninitiated investigators almost immediate access to computer facilities, and which keep programming effort low. Simulation is assuming an increasing role in communications research.