Child Speech Recognition in Human-Robot Interaction: Evaluations and Recommendations

Kennedy, J.; Montassier, Caroline; Lavalade, Pauline; Irfan, Bahar; Papadopoulos, Fotios; Senft, Emmanuel; Belpaeme, Tony; Lemaignan, S.

Abstract

© 2017 ACM. An increasing number of human-robot interaction (HRI) studies are now taking place in applied settings with children. These interactions often hinge on verbal interaction to effectively achieve their goals. Great advances have been made in adult speech recognition and it is often assumed that these advances will carry over to the HRI domain and to interactions with children. In this paper, we evaluate a number of automatic speech recognition (ASR) engines under a variety of conditions, inspired by real-world social HRI conditions. Using the data collected we demonstrate that there is still much work to be done in ASR for child speech, with interactions relying solely on this modality still out of reach. However, we also make recommendations for child-robot interaction design in order to maximise the capability that does currently exist.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
• Start Date: Mar 6, 2017
• End Date: Mar 9, 2017
• Acceptance Date: Oct 24, 2016
• Publication Date: Mar 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Apr 30, 2018
• Electronic ISSN: 2167-2148
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: Part F127194
• Pages: 82-90
• Book Title: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM/IEEE Human-Robot Interaction Conference
• ISBN: 9781450343367
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/2909824.3020229
• Keywords: Child-Robot Interaction; Automatic Speech Recognition;; Verbal Interaction; Interaction Design Recommendations
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/897065
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2909824.3020229
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : Human-Robot Interaction
• Contract Date: Apr 30, 2018