Unimodal and multimodal variants of voice output communication aids

由于潜在的身体障碍，很少或没有功能语言、手势或书写的人可以使用一种称为语音输出通信辅助设备（VOCA）的计算设备来产生合成语音（合成或数字化）。这个设备提供了另一种交流方式，尽管是辅助的。经验证据表明，这种模式是对其他独立模式的补充，而不是替代，如发声、面部表情和凝视、手部、头部和躯干的手势。因此，voca的评估和设计不仅要考虑输出率的问题（例如，每分钟的单词数），还要考虑与个人所有模式策略的效用相关的问题，其中合成语音只是其中的一个组成部分。这个研究项目的目标是通过开发软件技术和建模工具来开发更好的vocs，这些软件技术和建模工具考虑到这一“全球”背景。研究将集中在单模态和多模态界面变量的对比评估，以及基于信息理论的设计原则的使用。形式分析和理论分析将通过实证研究进行验证。

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.