Abstract
We propose an “oblique” listening system in the English language for the blind and visually impaired by controlling the speed of Text-to-Speech based on parts of speech in which the important parts are synthesized ’relatively’ slower while the unimportant at the maximum speed. In the system evaluation experiment, English natives with vision impairments were required to listen to three short passages of Text-to-Speech at the three types of speed and answer the questions of comprehension after the base-line speed was calculated from the measured maximum speed of recognizing ’a word’ and that of recognizing ’a sentence’ for each subject. We controlled the Text-to-Speech speed: base-line, ’oblique listening’ speed, and simple high speed, by which the duration is equal to the one by our system but without any speed variation. The results show that the “oblique” listening system is better than a simple high speed system even though not exceeding the base-line.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Just, M.A., Carpenter, P.A.: A Theory of Reading. From Eye Fixations to Comprehension. Psychological Review 87, 329–354 (1980)
Asakawa, C., Takagi, H., Ino, S., Ifukube, T.: The Highest and the Most Suitable Listening Rate for the Blind in the Screen Reading Process. In: Proc. Human Interface Symposium 2002, pp. 543–546 (2002)
Vemuri, S., DeCamp, P., Bender, W., Schmandt, C.: Improving Speech Playback Using Time-Compression and Speech Recognition. In: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, Vienna, Austria, pp. 295–302 (2004)
Brazil, D.C., Coulthard, C., Johns: Discourse Intonation and Language Teaching. Longman, London (1980)
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., Svartvik, J.: A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman Group UK Ltd., Harlow (1985)
Asakawa, C., Takagi, H., Ino, S., Ifukube, T.: The Optimal and Maximum Listening Rates in Presenting Speech Information to the Blind. J. Human Interface Society 7(1), 105–111 (2005)
Peyawary, A.S.: The Core Vocabulary of International English, A Corpus Approach. The SIT Centre, Bergen, 150–176 (1999)
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 3rd edn., Kirihara Shoten (2002)
Watanabe, T., Sakajiri, M., Sashida, C., Okada, S.: A Survey of Windows Accessibility by Visually-Impaired PC Users. Technical Report of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE). vol. 100(256), pp. 37–42 (2000)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Torihara, S., Nakamura, M., Ueda, N., Wada, T., Ishizaki, S. (2006). English “Oblique” Listening System – Rapid Listening System for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and Its Evaluation. In: Miesenberger, K., Klaus, J., Zagler, W.L., Karshmer, A.I. (eds) Computers Helping People with Special Needs. ICCHP 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4061. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11788713_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11788713_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-36020-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-36021-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)