Communication in Vehicles: Cultural Variability in Speech Systems

Journal of Applied Communication Research, 2013

Ethnographers of communication are increasingly working within interdisciplinary teams to address social problems in communities, corporations, and governments. This special forum brings together ethnographers of communication to reflect on the opportunities, tensions, and challenges involved in using the ethnography of communication to seek workable solutions to social problems with fellow scholars, practitioners, and community members. Through empirical case studies, contributors demonstrate how the ethnography of communication is used to build cultural competence and design strategic action.

Accident Analysis and Prevention, 2009

This study examined whether speech-based interfaces for different in-vehicle-information-systems (IVIS) reduce the distraction caused by these systems. For three frequently used systems (audio, telephone with name selection, navigation system with address entry and point of interest selection) speech, manual control and driving without IVIS (baseline) were compared. The Lane Change Task was used to assess driving performance. Additionally, gaze behavior and a subjective measure of distraction were analyzed. Speech interfaces improved driving performance, gaze behavior and subjective distraction for all systems with the exception of point-of-interest entry. However, these improvements were overall not strong enough to reach the baseline performance level. Only in easy segments of the driving task the performance level was comparable to baseline. Thus, speech-based IVIS have to be further developed to keep the cognitive complexity at an adequate level which does not disturb driving. However, looking at the benefits, speech control is a must for the car of the future.

2015

This paper compares an emergent interaction modality for the In-Vehicle Infotainment System (IVIS), i.e., gesturing on the steering wheel, with two more popular modalities in modern cars: touch and speech. We conducted a betweensubjects experiment with 20 participants for each modality to assess the interaction performance with the IVIS and the impact on the driving performance. Moreover, we compared the three modalities in terms of usability, subjective workload and emotional response. The results showed no statically significant differences between the three interaction modalities regarding the various indicators for the driving task performance, while significant differences were found in measures of IVIS interaction performance: users performed less interactions to complete the secondary tasks with the speech modality, while, in average, a lower task completion time was registered with the touch modality. The three interfaces were comparable in all the subjective metrics.

2009

Automobile manufacturers are making information systems available in all vehicles. Most systems are screen based, but increasingly systems are either hybrids (screen/speech) or speech based. Speech systems in vehicles may have advantages over screen based in-vehicle systems; literature suggests that speech can be less distracting than screen-based interactions. Nonetheless, using speech systems in the car also introduces social and attitudinal effects. Voices are not neutral! Voices carry socio-economic cues including indicators of gender, age, personality, emotional state, ethniticity, education and social status. Perception of information presented by the voice is influenced by the perception of the voice demographics. This is further complicated by different individuals perceiving voices in different ways. A voice that is seen as positive by one individual can be perceived negatively by another. We present results from a number of driving simulator studies of speech based in-vehicle systems. These studies show that speech based in-vehicle systems can affect drivers' attitude and driving performance. Attitude and performance can be improved, but the effect of the voice can also prove harmful for driving behaviour and driving safety. This makes it important to include the voice as a design parameter of speech-based in-vehicle systems. Automobile manufacturers, electronics and telecommunications companies are making computer based information systems available in all vehicles. Most cars today are fitted with interactive information systems including high quality audio/video systems, satellite navigation systems, handsfree telephony, and control over climate and car behaviour .

Proc of the 6th Intern. Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2004), 2004

The design of interfaces for automotive information systems is a critical task. In fact, in the vehicular domain the user is busy in the primary task of the driving, and any visual distraction inducted by the telematic systems can bring to serious consequences. Since road safety is paramount, it is needed to define new interaction metaphors, not affecting the driver's visual workload, such as auditory interfaces. In this paper we propose an innovative automotive auditory interaction paradigm, whose main goals are not to require visual attention, to be smart for expert users, as well as easy to use for inexperienced users. This is achieved by a new atomic dialogue paradigm, based on a help-on-demand mechanism, to provide a vocal support to users in trouble. Finally, we present some examples of dialogue based on such approach.

12th World Congress …, 2005

In recent years, an increasing number of new devices have found their way into the cars we drive. Speech-operated devices in particular provide a great service to drivers by minimizing distraction, so that they can keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes ...

satnac.org.za

The number of cars provided with in-car communication systems has increased noticeably. Research has shown that using a mobile phone whilst driving has usability and safety issues. In order to minimise these issues, user interfaces that promote the usage of the hands and eyes solely for the driving task have been proposed. This paper discusses the design of MIMI (Multimodal Interface for Mobile Infocommunication), a prototype multimodal in-car communication system using a speech interface, supplemented with steering wheel button input. The design of MIMI is discussed, together with its architecture, including the dialogue manager, the adaptive module and the workload manager. The adaptive module contains a workload manager that helps MIMI to present information to the driver such that driver distraction is reduced.

2016

This paper compares an emergent interaction modality for the In-Vehicle Infotainment System (IVIS), i.e., gesturing on the steering wheel, with two more popular modalities in modern cars: touch in the central dashboard and speech. We conducted a between-subjects experiment with 20 participants for each modality to assess the interaction performance with the IVIS and the impact on the driving performance. Moreover, we compared the three modalities in terms of usability, subjective workload and emotional response. The results showed no statically significant differences between the three interaction modalities regarding the various indicators for the driving task performance, while significant differences were found in measures of IVIS interaction performance: users performed less interactions to complete the secondary tasks with the speech modality, while, in average, a lower task completion time was registered with the touch modality. The three interfaces were comparable in terms of perceived usability, mental workload and emotional response.

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Transportation or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The United States Government assumes no liability for its contents or use thereof. If trade or manufacturers' names or products are mentioned, it is because they are considered essential to the object of the publication and should not be construed as an endorsement. The United States Government does not endorse products or manufacturers. iii For the convenience of visually impaired readers of this report using text-to-speech software, additional descriptive text has been provided within the body of the report for graphical images to satisfy Section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).