Identifying the Desired Word Suggestion in Simultaneous Audio

TL;DR

This study investigates how simultaneous voice presentations affect user ability to select desired words during non-visual text input, finding that slight delays can improve accuracy and speed.

Contribution

It introduces a method to present multiple word suggestions via simultaneous voices with minimal accuracy loss by adding slight delays.

Findings

Adding a 0.15 s delay improves accuracy for simultaneous words.

Simultaneous presentation with delay is 32% faster than sequential.

User accuracy remains high with two words when delay is used.

Abstract

We explore a method for presenting word suggestions for non-visual text input using simultaneous voices. We conduct two perceptual studies and investigate the impact of different presentations of voices on a user's ability to detect which voice, if any, spoke their desired word. Our sets of words simulated the word suggestions of a predictive keyboard during real-world text input. We find that when voices are simultaneous, user accuracy decreases significantly with each added word suggestion. However, adding a slight 0.15 s delay between the start of each subsequent word allows two simultaneous words to be presented with no significant decrease in accuracy compared to presenting two words sequentially (84% simultaneous versus 86% sequential). This allows two word suggestions to be presented to the user 32% faster than sequential playback without decreasing accuracy.