One of Zig’s associates to take the stage was Larry Heck, Chief Scientist, Speech at Microsoft. Larry believes that there are three areas of research and development that will combine to make speech a part of everyday interactions with computers. First, the advent of ubiquitous computing and the need for natural user interfaces (NUIs) means that we cannot keep relying on GUIs and keyboards for many of our computing needs. Second, cloud computing makes it possible to gather rich data to train speech systems. Finally, with advances in speech technology we can expect to see search move beyond typing keywords (which is what we do today sitting at our PCs) to conversational queries (which is what people are starting to do on mobile phones).

I attended four other talks with topics relevant to my research. Brigitte Richardson discussed her work on Ford’s Sync. It’s exciting to hear that Ford is coming out with an SDK that will allow integrating devices with Sync. This appears to be a similar approach to ours at Project54 – we also provide an SDK which can be used to write software for the Project54 system [1]. Eduardo Olvera of Nuance discussed the differences and similarities between designing interfaces for speech interaction and those for interaction on a small form factor screen. Karen Kaushansky of TellMe discussed similar issues focusing on customer care. Finally, Kathy Lee, also of TellMe, discussed her work on a diary study exploring when people are willing to talk to their phones. This work reminded me of an experiment in which Ronkainen et al. asked participants to rate the social acceptability of mobile phone usage scenarios they viewed in video clips [2].

I also had a chance to give a talk reviewing some of the results of my collaboration with Tim Paek of Microsoft Research. Specifically, I discussed the effects of speech recognition accuracy and PTT button usage on driving performance [3] and the use of voice-only instructions for personal navigation devices [4]. The talk was very well received by the audience of over 25, with many follow-up questions. Tim also gave this talk earlier this year at Mobile Voice 2010.

For pictures from SpeechTEK 2010 visit my Flickr page.

References

[1] Andrew L. Kun, W. Thomas Miller, III, Albert Pelhe and Richard L. Lynch, “A software architecture supporting in-car speech interaction,” IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium 2004

[2] Sami Ronkainen, Jonna Häkkilä, Saana Kaleva, Ashley Colley, Jukka Linjama, “Tap Input as an Embedded Interaction Method for Mobile Devices,” TEI 2007

[3] Andrew L. Kun, Tim Paek, Zeljko Medenica, “The Effect of Speech Interface Accuracy on Driving Performance,” Interspeech 2007

[4] Andrew L. Kun, Tim Paek, Zeljko Medenica, Nemanja Memarovic, Oskar Palinko, “Glancing at Personal Navigation Devices Can Affect Driving: Experimental Results and Design Implications,” Automotive UI 2009

Our SIG deals with human-computer interaction in the car. This is an exciting field of study that was the topic of a CHI 2008 SIG [2] as well as the AutomotiveUI 2009 conference [3], and the AutomotiveUI 2010 CFP will be posted very soon. In the last several years human-computer interaction in the car has increased for two main reasons. One, many cars now come equipped with myriad electronic devices such as displays indicating power usage and advanced driver assistance systems. Second, users (drivers and passengers) bring mobile devices to cars. The list of these brought-in mobile devices is long but personal navigation devices and mp3 players are probably the most common ones.

At the SIG we hope to discuss user interface issues that are the result of having all of these devices in cars. Some of the questions are:

• How can we reduce (or eliminate) driver distraction caused by the in-car devices?
• Can driver interactions with in-car devices actually improve driving performance?
• Can users take advantage of novel technologies, such as streaming videos from other cars?
• How do we build interfaces that users can trust and will thus actually use?
• How can car manufacturers, OEMs, brought-in device manufacturers and academia collaborate in envisioning, creating and implementing automotive user interfaces?

The 2008 CHI SIG [2] attracted over 60 people and we’re hoping for similar (or better!) turnout.

References

[1] Albrecht Schmidt, Anind L. Dey, Andrew L. Kun, Wolfgang Spiessl, “Automotive User Interfaces: Human Computer Interaction in the Car,” CHI 2010 Extended Abstracts (to appear)

[2] D. M. Krum, J. Faenger, B. Lathrop, J. Sison, A. Lien, “All roads lead to CHI: interaction in the automobile,” CHI 2008 Extended Abstracts

[3] Albrecht Schmidt, Anind Dey, Thomas Seder, Oskar Juhlin, “Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications, 2009″

In previous experiments in our lab we have concentrated on performance measures to evaluate the effects of secondary tasks on the driver. Secondary tasks are those performed in addition to driving, e.g. interacting with a personal navigation device. However, as Jackson Beatty has shown, when people’s cognitive load increases their pupils dilate  [2]. This fascinating phenomenon provides a physiological measure of cognitive load. Why is it important to have multiple measures of cognitive load? As Christopher Wickens points out [3] this allows us to avoid circular arguments such as “… saying that a task interferes more because of its higher resource demand, and its resource demand is inferred to be higher because of its greater interference.”

We found that in a driving simulator-based experiment that was conducted by Alex, performance-based and pupillometry-based (that is a physiological) cognitive load measures show high correspondence for tasks that lasted tens of seconds. In other words, both driving performance measures and pupil size changes appear to track cognitive load changes. In the experiment the driver is involved in two spoken tasks in addition to the manual-visual task of driving. We hypothesize that different parts of these two spoken tasks present different levels of cognitive load for the driver. Our measurements of driving performance and pupil diameter changes appear to confirm the hypothesis. Additionally, we introduced a new pupillometry-based cognitive load measure that shows promise for tracking changes in cognitive load on time scales of several seconds.

In Alex’s experiment one of the spoken tasks required participants to ask and answer yes/no questions. We hypothesize that different phases of this task also present different levels of cognitive load to the driver. Will this be evident in driving performance and pupillometric data? We hope to find out soon!

References

[1] Oskar Palinko, Andrew L. Kun, Alexander Shyrokov, Peter Heeman, “Estimating Cognitive Load Using Remote Eye Tracking in a Driving Simulator,” ETRA 2010

[2] Jackson Beatty, “Task-evoked pupillary responses, processing load, and the structure of processing resources,” Psychological Bulletin. Vol. 91(2), Mar 1982, 276-292

[3] Christopher D. Wickens, “Multiple resources and performance prediction,” Theoretical Issues in Ergonomic Science, 2002, Vol. 3, No. 2, 159-177

Oskar (center) and Mike (right)

Zeljko (center)

Oskar, Mike and I are working on expanding the multitouch study. We plan to start with an online study in which subjects will watch two videos, one in which a story is presented using the multitouch table and another with the same story presented using a simple slide show. Zeljko will head up the follow-on to the pilot study – take a look at the video below to see (roughly) what we’re planning to do.

Take a look at other pictures I took at Ubicomp 2009 on Flickr.

References

[1] Oskar Palinko, Ankit Singh, Michael A. Farrar, Michael Litchfield, Andrew L. Kun, “Towards Storytelling with Geotagged Photos on a Multitouch Display,” Conference Supplement, Ubicomp 2009

[2] Zeljko Medenica, Oskar Palinko, Andrew L. Kun, Tim Paek, “Exploring In-Car Augmented Reality Navigation Aids: A Pilot Study,” Conference Supplement, Ubicomp 2009

I gave a talk at the conference about our latest navigation study that investigated the influence of two personal navigation devices on driving performance and visual attention. This was collaborative work with Tim Paek of Microsoft Research. For more information on our findings check out the paper or take a look at the slides: