Hello, I'm Wooseok Kim from KAIST. Today I will be presenting my late-breaking work,
I can’t talk now : Speaking with Voice Output Communication Aid
Using Text-to-Speech Synthesis During Multiparty Video Conference.
As you know, the COVID - 19 pandemic has expanded the need for video conferencing
and, the number of new users has dramatically increased.
However, where are the new users participating in video conferences?
In our preliminary study, we found that users are participating in various spaces. Some respondents
of our survey answered that they had experiences
participating in video conferences in public spaces, even on public transport.
And we've found that people are sometimes psychologically
constrained by environmental factors. For example, users are unwilling to turn
on the microphone and speak out loud in where is too noisy or where other people are there.
And some respondents replied that they had experiences of not saying what they wanted
to say because of environmental factors. And it is not easy to communicate with
text chat while others are talking by voice. We thought this is a significant problem.
So, to solve it, we thought about delivering speech through sound without making a sound.
Actually, this is not a new idea. There are already many studies for
disabled people such as augmentative and alternative communication,
voice output communication aid, and speech-generating device.
So, We regarded users who felt afraid to speak out due to surrounding
factors as temporary disabled people. To check whether VOCA could help those users,
we developed a simple technology probe using text-to-speech synthesis.
And we conducted user tests to observe its feasibility.
We designated one of 4 participants per team as PX and controlled PX's conditions
in three conferences as follows: • First conference: PX was located
in a public space in which it was undesirable to speak out loud.
• Second: in the same space as the first conference and VOCA was available.
• Third: VOCA was available, and PX could speak freely in a private room.
As a result of the user tests, PXs can not participate well when they used text chat.
And, at the second conferences, our VOCA solved most of the problems of text chat.
The results of the participants’ peer evaluation show that the second conference supported more
equitable participation than the first conference. At the last conferences,
We also found an additional potential of VOCA, that users may use this for special purposes.
Based on this, we determined that it is worth evolving VOCA for video conferencing.
So we propose the following 5 future agendas base on the issues we found.
First. Adjustable speech rate.
VOCA should be able to speak at a similar speech rate as other attendees.
Second. Adjustable tone and nuances to suit the various purposes of speech.
Third, signal user input status and beginnings and endings of utterances.
And fourth, cope with situations of voice overlap. In order not to interfere with other people’s
turn-taking, VOCA should provide speech cues and prepare means to cope with voice overlap.
The last, feeling of a human. We can investigate the usability
of VOCA with a speech synthesizer trained with a user’s vocal timbre or intonation.
To summarize, we found that users’ participation in video conferencing
can be affected by external environmental conditions.
And found that VOCA can help users who face temporary speaking constraints.
AAC or VOCA is not just for people with disabilities.
If more AAC studies target both the disabled and the able-bodied, communication barriers
will become more blurred. In that sense,
we hope that this study contributes to broadening the scope of AAC research.