Ing-Marie Jonsson

Thank you, I did not see that: in-car speech based information systems for older adults

Older adult drivers have more difficulty than the general driving public in attending to driving tasks especially in complex traffic situations. This study examines whether a speech based in-car information system can positively influence driver attitudes, driving performance and safety. Eighteen participants between the ages of 55 and 73 used a driving simulator for approximately thirty minutes in one of three conditions: in-car information system with a young voice informing the driver of upcoming hazards, in-car information system with an older adult voice, and no in-car system. There was a clear positive effect of driving with the in-car information system; drivers felt more confident driving, they completed the driving course in less time (without exceeding the speed limit), and had fewer accidents. There was also a clear positive effect of using a young adult voice for the in-car information system.

Using Paralinguistic Cues in Speech to Recognise Emotions in Older Car Drivers

Interactive speech based systems are moving into the car since speech interactions are considered less detrimental to the driver than interactions with a display. The introduction of in-car speech-based interactions highlights the potential influence of linguistic and paralinguistic cues such as emotion. Emotions direct and focus peoples attention on objects and situations, and affects performance, judgment and risk-taking. All of these properties are crucial for driving where the smallest slip-up can have grave repercussions. Emotional cues in a car-voice, paired with the emotional state of the driver, have been found to influence driving performance. This initiated the design of an in-car driver emotion detection and response system. Results show that the in-car system can recognise and track changes in the emotional state of the driver. This study considers older drivers who often feel both unsafe and insecure due to concerns about declining abilities and in particular vision.

Performance analysis of acoustic emotion recognition for in-car conversational interfaces

The automotive industry are integrating more technologies into the standard new car kit. New cars often provide speech enabled communications such as voice-dial, as well as control over the car cockpit including entertainment systems, climate and satellite navigation. In addition there is the potential for a richer interaction between driver and car by automatically recognising the emotional state of the driver and responding intelligently and appropriately. Driver emotion and driving performance are often intrinsically linked and knowledge of the driver emotion can enable to the car to support the driving experience and encourage better driving. Automatically recognising driver emotion is a challenge and this paper presents a performance analysis of our in-car acoustic emotion recognition system.

Application of Speech Technology in Vehicles

Speech technology has been regarded as one of the most interesting technologies for operating in-vehicle information systems. Cameron [1] has pointed out that under at least one of the four criteria that people are using speech system more likely. These four criteria are the following: (1) They are offered no choice; (2) it corresponds to the privacy of their surroundings; (3) their hands or eyes are busy on another task; and (4) it is quicker than any other alternatives. For driver, driving is a typical “hands and eyes are busy” task. In most of the situations, the driver is the only person inside the car, or with some passengers who know each other well, so the “privacy of surroundings” criteria are also met. There are long histories of interests of applying speech technology into controlling in-vehicle information system. Up to now, some of the commercial cars have already equipped with imbedded speech technology. In 1996, however, the S-Class car of Mercedes-Benz introduced Linguatronic, the first generation of in-car speech system for anybody who drives a car [2]. Since then, the number of in-vehicle applications using speech technology is increasing [3].