Unimodal and multimodal variants of voice output communication aids

由于潜在的身体障碍而几乎没有功能的言语、手势或书写的人可以使用一种名为语音输出通信辅助(VOCA)的计算设备来产生合成语音(合成的或数字化的)。然而，这种设备提供了另一种尽管是辅助的交流模式。许多经验证据表明，这种模式是对其他非辅助模式的补充，而不是替代，例如发声、面部表情和凝视，以及手、头和躯干的手势。因此，VOCA的评估和设计不仅必须考虑输出速度的问题(例如，这项研究的目标是通过开发软件技术和建模工具来开发更好的VOC。该研究将侧重于对单模和多模接口变量的对比评估，以及基于信息论的设计原则的使用。形式和理论分析将通过实证研究来验证。

Individuals with little or no functional speech, gesture, or writingdue to underlying physical disorder may instead use a computationaldevice, called a Voice Output Communication Aid (VOCA), to producesynthetic speech (synthesized or digitized).  This device affordsanother, albeit aided, mode of communication.  Empirical evidenceshows that this mode is a complement to, and not a replacement for,the other, unaided modes, such as vocalization, facial expression andgaze, and gestures of the hand, head and torso.  Thus, the evaluationand design of VOCAs must take into consideration not only the issue ofrate of output (e.g., words-per-minute) but also issues that relate tothe utility of the individual's entire repertoire of mode strategies,of which synthesized speech is but one component.The goal of this program of research is to develop better VOCAsthrough the development of software techniques and modelling toolsthat take into account this "global" context.  The research will focuson the contrastive evaluation of unimodal and multimodal interfacevariants, and the use of design principles based on informationtheory.  The formal and theoretical analyses will be validated byempirical studies.