Audio Stories Research Articles

Neural tracking of natural speech in children in relation to their receptive speech abilities

Receptive speech is the ability to understand speech addressed to a person. It is a crucial process for a child’s cognitive development. We examine the relationship between receptive speech and neural tracking of natural speech in 52 children aged 3–8 years to infer the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying speech development. We registered a 32-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) while children listened to narrative audio stories. The temporal response function (TRF) approach was used to study neural tracking features at acoustic and semantic levels. We found a strong positive correlation between the TRF prediction accuracy values that demonstrate the magnitude of neural tracking, and receptive speech abilities measured by the Preschool Language Scales (PLS-5). Topographic analysis of these correlations showed significant clusters of EEG channels in the right temporal region for acoustic tracking, and in the left fronto-central and right parieto-occipital regions for semantic tracking. We assume that these results reflect the development of the brain systems necessary for speech comprehension. To sum up, we suggest that the TRF measures are easy-to-assess neurophysiological markers of receptive speech development in children.

Gendered Dimensions of Migration and Conviviality: A Virtual Space for Autoethnographic Explorations of ‘Finding Home’

ABSTRACT Gendered dimensions of migration although mainstream current research, there is less attention given to migrant women’s social interaction and convivial experiences. As three transnational women living and working in Melbourne, we have our social lives outside work and family. During COVID-19 lockdowns, we found ourselves isolated with restrictions on social interaction and convivial gatherings. In this paper, we discuss how we experienced ‘conviviality’ while sharing our stories of ‘finding home’ in a virtual space. We engaged on Zoom to tour an exhibition about migrant stories – The Unending Absence (2017) at the Immigration Museum in Melbourne. We listened to migrants’ audio stories of ‘finding home’, then paused to write our individual experiences of migratory moves. Collaborative autoethnography facilitated our writing and reflexive dialoguing providing a safe and convivial space to share our experiences infused with emotions. Discussing our gendered migration journeys we found similarities and differences in cultural heritage, ethnicity, and belonging along with personal and professional identities structuring our choices, decisions, norms, and opportunities of ‘finding home’. Through reciprocal triadic lenses, we highlight how social interactions and being convivial are important to our ongoing well-being, whether we interact with others in person or using a virtual space.

The Influence of Audio Stories on Enhancing Digital Literacy In Early Childhood: A Survey Study

Digital literacy in children is the ability to understand information from the various information they receive. Introducing digital literacy to children is very important, in this era children use digital technology more often. Therefore, it is important for parents to ensure that children have a good understanding of how to use technology properly and that it can be used in positive activities. The aim of this research is to find out how to use audio stories to improve digital literacy skills in children. This research can also see how parents participate in introducing digital literacy to children, this media can help children develop developmental aspects in children. This research method uses a qualitative descriptive method. The results of this research provide important knowledge about research developments related to the development of digital literacy. Children can understand listening and improving words, retelling and most importantly children can express what is on their mind and use language that is easy for children and other people to understand. Researchers can conclude that it is very important to instill digital literacy in children from a young age because this development is very important to be instilled from a young age, this development is very influential on cognitive development in early childhood.

Listen up, kids! How mind wandering affects immediate and delayed memory in children.

Mind wandering occurs when attention becomes disengaged from the here-and-now and directed toward internally generated thoughts; this is often associated with poorer performance on educationally significant tasks. In this study, 8- to 9-year-old children (N = 60) listened to audio stories embedded with intermittent thought probes that were used to determine if participants' thoughts were on or off task. The key objective was to explore the impact of probe-caught mind wandering on both immediate and delayed memory retention. Children reported being off task approximately 24% of the time. Most inattention episodes were classified as task-unrelated thoughts (i.e., 'pure' instances of mind wandering, 9%) or attentional failures due to distractions (9%). Higher frequency of mind wandering was strongly associated with poorer memory recall, and task-unrelated thoughts strongly predicted how well children could recall components of the audio story both immediately after the task and after a 1-week delay. This study is the first to demonstrate the impact of mind wandering on delayed memory retention in children. Results suggest that exploring mind wandering in the foundational years of schooling could provide the necessary empirical foundation for the development of practical interventions geared toward detecting and refocusing lapses of attention in educational contexts.

The 3D Sound Power of Immersion Processing and Psychophysiological Effects of Binaural versus Stereo Audio Stories

ABSTRACT Many people are listening to fiction stories in podcasts and audiobooks. Some techniques, such as 3D or binaural sound, might improve the listeners’ sensory experience in this kind of format. However, few audio productions are produced with binaural sound, and research about their effects on cognitive processing is scarce. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the impact of binaural sound in audio stories compared to their stereo versions on the listeners’ cognitive processing and physiological responses. Fifty participants listened to two stories produced in two versions: binaural and stereo, and they assessed enjoyment, engagement, and imagery while their physiological responses were measured (heart rate and electrodermal activity). Also, they performed a recognition test. The results showed that the binaural version achieved higher narrative engagement, enjoyment, imagery, and information recognition than the stereo stories. The psychophysiological responses indicated the highest attention and arousal in binaural stories.

Available Resources of English Story Telling on Spotify to Enhance Listening Comprehension Skills

Learning a new language encompasses various skills, including writing, reading, speaking, and listening. Developing listening comprehension abilities can be particularly challenging and requires consistent practice. An effective approach to improving listening skills is through exposure to audio storytelling. However, language learners often struggle to locate suitable content for this purpose. This study aims to identify and analyze audio storytelling resources available on the Spotify platform, specifically accessible to students. The analysis of these resources will facilitate a better understanding of their content and provide opportunities for practicing listening comprehension.The research adopts a qualitative approach, utilizing a content analysis method to evaluate the available content on Spotify. The researcher explored the platform to identify audio storytelling content and assess their potential for enhancing listening abilities. Factors such as content types, popularity, difficulty levels, and activity rates were considered during the analysis.The findings revealed three prominent channels on Spotify that specialize in audio storytelling content. These channels are popular among Spotify users, actively upload new content at least once a week, and offer content with varying difficulty levels. Each channel contains a rich collection of audio stories, encompassing grammatical and vocabulary aspects tailored to different difficulty levels, along with opportunities for exploring diverse cultures

What Healthcare Workers Told Us about Working through the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Analysis of Digital Audio Stories

Aims. The purpose of this article is to share the qualitative results of digital stories from 21 healthcare workers during the second wave of the pandemic and compare them with stories analyzed during tEli Mhe first wave. Background. Everyone has personal COVID-19 experiences and memories. Yet, the literature is lacking in how the stories from the healthcare team during the pandemic affected the individual healthcare worker at that time. Methods. A descriptive qualitative study analyzing digital stories was conducted during the second wave of the pandemic of a large Midwest healthcare system. Results. Twenty-one audio stories were analyzed. Four themes revealed were negative emotional response/impact, feelings/statements of optimism and hope, imposed or changing role expectations, and leadership/administration concerns. These themes aligned with the first wave analysis. Conclusions. Healthcare workers during COVID-19 experienced profound upheaval in their usual daily rhythm. This study revealed that there was a paradox of experiences consistently shared through their own stories including perceptions healthcare workers had of their leadership and the perceived system failure. Implications for Nursing Management. The pandemic resulted in healthcare teams expressing anxiety in caring for COVID patients, yet trying to remain hopeful. They also expressed awareness of how their own roles changed and the leadership failures during this time. Strong leadership is required to create a path forward for healthcare workers.

“You're more engaged when you’re listening to somebody tell their story”: A qualitative exploration into the mechanisms of the podcast ‘menopause: unmuted’ for communicating health information

ObjectiveWhile health podcasts can be effective in reducing stigma and increasing knowledge, we know little about their mechanisms of action. This qualitative study explored the mechanisms of how women connected with the podcast ‘menopause: unmuted’, which presented menopause information in a storytelling format. MethodsA diverse sample of 30 women aged 40–60 years were interviewed after listening to the podcast. Interviews covered participant’s views and perceptions of the stories presented. Transcripts were analyzed thematically. FindingsTwo overarching themes were identified. ‘Openness and authenticity’ describes the value of personal stories told in an authentic way by real experts-by-experience. ‘Relatability and representation’ explores participants’ emotional reaction to the podcast, influenced by the extent to which they identified with the stories and storytellers on the podcast. ConclusionsAuthenticity and relatability were identified as key mechanisms through which participants connected with audio stories, consistent with Fisher’s narrative theory. These findings have important implications for the application of storytelling in podcasts designed to influence health behaviors. Practice implicationsDiverse stories representing a range of demographic characteristics and experiences are needed when creating podcasts about health information to increase listener’s relatability and connection.

A Study of Using Metaphoric and Beat Gestures with Motion-Based and Non-Motion-Based Metaphors during Retelling Stories.

In this paper, we classify metaphors into four categories: motion-based metaphors, static space-based metaphors, static object-based metaphors, and static event-based metaphors. Then, a study that investigated the use of gestures with these types of metaphors is reported. The aim was to examine how these types of metaphors are used with metaphoric and beat gestures during the process of re-telling stories. The participants of the study listened to three audio stories. Each story contained two motion-based metaphors, two static space-based metaphors, two static object-based metaphors, and two static event-based metaphors. After listening to each story, they had to retell the stories in front of a camera. The videos were analyzed to determine the number of metaphoric gestures and beat gestures that had been used by participants during the retelling of the stories. The results showed that the highest number of metaphoric gestures had been used with static space-based metaphors. This was followed by motion-based metaphors, static object-based metaphors, and static event-based metaphors, respectively. On the other hand, the highest number of beat gestures was used with static event-based metaphors. These findings indicate that the use of metaphoric gestures and beat gestures accompanying metaphors is highly dependent on the spatial and motoric properties of the base of the metaphors, which supports the idea of embodied metaphor comprehension.

Collaborative Approach for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Research and Education (CARE): A recruitment registry for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, aging and caregiver‐related research

AbstractBackgroundThere have been large investments in Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) research, but low AD/ADRD research participation from ethnically diverse individuals can hinder the facilitation and progress in the advancements of AD/ADRD prevention, treatment and care. The fastest growing racial group of older Americans at risk for AD/ADRD are Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs), but their research participation is limited. To address this disparity in AAPIs’ research participation, a recruitment registry, Collaborative Approach for AAPI Research and Education (CARE), was established to educate and engage AAPIs in AD/ADRD, aging, and caregiving related research in California, U.S.A. We will discuss an overview of CARE, completed/planned activities, and future vision.MethodsCARE created a recruitment registry of 10,000+ AAPIs. CARE has 25+ community/research partners, many of whom serve on CARE’s Community Advisory Board, who help to a) ensure that the outreach/conduct adheres to the principles of cultural humility/appropriateness; b) provide overall guidance/feedback about the registry’s development; c) provide input about research findings; and, f) provide perspectives/suggestions on community engagement. Focus groups (N=14) with AAPI cultural groups were conducted to identify best strategies for recruiting/retaining AAPIs’ CARE participation and establishing effective processes for connecting participants to studies. Based on focus group data, Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) surveys will be conducted in early 2021 to examine AAPIs’ preferences on recruitment messages/strategies.ResultCARE’s theme is “Health Across the Lifespan”, which considers the intergenerational families and collectivist AAPI cultures. CARE’s full launch was on 10/15/20 and as of 01/09/21, 1,400 AAPIs have enrolled. CARE is promoting its use via CARE’s Brain Trust meetings and the National Institute on Aging. Several outreach materials have been developed including: AD/ADRD caregiver audio stories; animated video; flyers; community‐tailored presentations. CARE’s activities are available in five spoken languages (English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese) and five written languages (English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese).ConclusionCARE aims to meaningfully include AAPI in AD/ADRD/aging/caregiving‐related research; and, for CARE to serve as a national resource for ADRD prevention, caregiving, and treatment research. We envision CARE to become a national recruitment registry and expand to include additional AAPI languages.

Do Social Investments by Mining Companies Harm Citizen-State Relations? Experimental Evidence from Burkina Faso

Do mining companies investing in public infrastructure in their host communities harm citizen-state relations? This study presents results from a survey-based field experiment conducted in two mining areas in Burkina Faso. We test whether informing respondents about investments undertaken by mining companies in domains considered classic government responsibilities affects citizens’ legitimating beliefs in their government and their likelihood of political participation. We randomly expose respondents to short audio stories about water infrastructure investments conducted by either a mining company or a municipal government in a fictitious but comparable village. Hearing about private as opposed to public investment leads to worse perceptions of the capacity and the legitimacy of the government in the fictitious village. Yet, the intervention does not affect respondents’ legitimating beliefs in their own local government. At the behavioural level, we find that hearing about either public or private investment as opposed to no information at all significantly increases participation in town hall meetings. Our experimental findings suggest that providing citizens in low-income settings information about investment in public infrastructure elsewhere can raise expectations in their own contexts and thereby stimulate citizen-state relations.

Let me listen to where you are. Spatial dimension resources in audio stories can increase imagery, transportation, attention, and recall

ABSTRACT This study analyzes the influence of the audio spatial dimension on the listener’s cognitive processing. Participants listened to different audio stories with four sound verbal and nonverbal resources (dialogue; dialogue and sound effects; dialogue and sound filters; dialogue and sound shots) representing the space and perspective of the scene. They rated the stories concerning imagery, transportation, attention, and performed a cued recall test. The results showed that the audio stories with nonverbal sound resources achieved higher imagery and transportation levels than stories with verbal information. The stories with nonverbal resources, except sound effects, obtained the highest levels of attention and recall. These results reveal the crucial role of the spatial dimension in audio processing.

Audio Stories as Incidental Language Teachers

Abstract. Audio stories offer a unique blend of narrative entertainment with language learning opportunities as a user’s enjoyment is dependent on their processing of the linguistic content. A total of 138 third- and fourth-graders from low socioeconomic status and migrant families recruited from a metropolitan area in Germany participated in a randomized pre–post follow-up intervention study with a control group. Children listened to a tailored crime story of approximately 90 min over a period of 3 days within the classroom setting. Entertainment value for the age group was established in a pilot study. Outcome variables included semantic and grammatical skills in German and were administered before (pretest), shortly after intervention (posttest), and 2 weeks later (follow-up). We used nonverbal intelligence, reading, comprehension skills, age and sex as control variables. Results indicate a strong positive effect of media reception on language skills. The effectiveness of the intervention is discussed with reference to different linguistic domains, entertainment value, and compensatory effects in populations at risk of language learning deficits.

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 The article discusses audio first stories as a phenomenon developed from the classic audiobook format. It focuses on so-called Audible Originals, published by the audiobook publisher Audible since 2018. The article is partly based on an interview with the Australian writer Ceridwen Dovey on her Audible Original novel Life after Truth (2019). It deals with original audio stories from four different perspectives: Writing through sound, publishing through sound, genres of sound and of cultural values and hierarchies connected to writing and publishing audio stories.
 
 

Physical Programming for Blind and Low Vision Children at Scale

There is a dearth of appropriate tools for young learners with mixed visual abilities to engage with computational learning. Addressing this gap, Torino is a physical programming language for teaching computational learning to children ages 7–11 regardless of level of vision. To create code, children connect physical instruction pods and tune their parameter dials to create music, audio stories, or poetry. Currently, the uptake of novel educational technologies to support inclusive education of children with disabilities continues to be limited at scale. We consider how the Torino Learning Environment supports non-specialist teachers to teach computational learning to children with mixed visual abilities in a UK-wide evaluation with 75 children and 30 teachers over a period of three months. We demonstrate how children can successfully learn with a novel physical programming language. We articulate how key design constructs such as persistent program overview and liveness supported non-specialist teachers to co-produce learning for children of different ages, visual and cognitive abilities. We conclude with reflective guidance on evaluating inclusive educational technologies at scale. CCS CONCEPTS Human-centered computing → Accessibility → Empirical studies in accessibility

Effectiveness of a Brief Home Parenting Intervention for Reducing Early Sexual Risks Among Latino Adolescents: Salud y Éxito.

Teen pregnancy rates and related risks remain elevated among Latino teens. We tested the impact on youth sexual behaviors of a brief, culturally targeted, bilingual media intervention designed for parents of young adolescents. Salud y éxito (Health & Success) uses dramatic audio stories to model positive parenting practices. After completing classroom surveys, 27 urban schools in the Northeast and Southwest serving low-income Latino communities were randomized so that all families of seventh grade students were sent either: (1) booklets on healthy eating and exercise; (2) Salud-50, where families either received booklets or the intervention, or (3) Salud-100, where all families received the intervention. Postintervention follow-up surveys were conducted at 3- and 12-months. Multilevel analyses tested intervention effects, controlling for sociodemographics. Compared with controls, at 12-months postintervention (8th grade spring), youth in Salud-100 report lower sexual risks (touching, AOR 1.46, CI 1.19-0.84, p < .001; lifetime sex (AOR 0.74, CI 0.61-0.90, p < .01); and sex intentions (AOR 0.78, CI 0.63-0.96, p < .05). Consistent with a dose-response, Salud-50 results are between those from Salud-100 and control schools. Salud y éxito is an effective parenting intervention that can augment school-based health and sexuality education and help Latino parents support their children during early adolescence.

Can we Automatically Transform Speech Recorded on Common Consumer Devices in Real-World Environments into Professional Production Quality Speech?—A Dataset, Insights, and Challenges

The goal of speech enhancement is typically to recover clean speech from noisy, reverberant, and often bandlimited speech in order to yield improved intelligibility, clarity, or automatic speech recognition performance. However, the acoustic goal for a great deal of speech content such as voice overs, podcasts, demo videos, lecture videos, and audio stories is often not merely clean speech, but speech that is aesthetically pleasing. This is achieved in professional recording studios by having a skilled sound engineer record clean speech in an acoustically treated room and then edit and process it with audio effects (which we refer to as production). A growing amount of speech content is being recorded on common consumer devices such as tablets, smartphones, and laptops. Moreover, it is typically recorded in common but non-acoustically treated environments such as homes and offices. We argue that the goal of enhancing such recordings should not only be to make it sound cleaner as would be done using traditional speech enhancement techniques, but to make it sound like it was recorded and produced in a professional recording studio. In this paper, we show why this can be beneficial, describe a new data set (a great deal of which was recorded in a professional recording studio) that we prepared to help in developing algorithms for this purpose, and discuss some insights and challenges associated with this problem.

Effectiveness and Comparison of Various Audio Distraction Aids in Management of Anxious Dental Paediatric Patients.

Dental anxiety is a widespread phenomenon and a concern for paediatric dentistry. The inability of children to deal with threatening dental stimuli often manifests as behaviour management problems. Nowadays, the use of non-aversive behaviour management techniques is more advocated, which are more acceptable to parents, patients and practitioners. Therefore, this present study was conducted to find out which audio aid was the most effective in the managing anxious children. The aim of the present study was to compare the efficacy of audio-distraction aids in reducing the anxiety of paediatric patients while undergoing various stressful and invasive dental procedures. The objectives were to ascertain whether audio distraction is an effective means of anxiety management and which type of audio aid is the most effective. A total number of 150 children, aged between 6 to 12 years, randomly selected amongst the patients who came for their first dental check-up, were placed in five groups of 30 each. These groups were the control group, the instrumental music group, the musical nursery rhymes group, the movie songs group and the audio stories group. The control group was treated under normal set-up & audio group listened to various audio presentations during treatment. Each child had four visits. In each visit, after the procedures was completed, the anxiety levels of the children were measured by the Venham's Picture Test (VPT), Venham's Clinical Rating Scale (VCRS) and pulse rate measurement with the help of pulse oximeter. A significant difference was seen between all the groups for the mean pulse rate, with an increase in subsequent visit. However, no significant difference was seen in the VPT & VCRS scores between all the groups. Audio aids in general reduced anxiety in comparison to the control group, and the most significant reduction in anxiety level was observed in the audio stories group. The conclusion derived from the present study was that audio distraction was effective in reducing anxiety and audio-stories were the most effective.

Audio Storytelling

Audio storytelling is booming. From crafted, long-form documentaries to short digital narratives, podcasting, social media and online streaming have liberated audio from the confines of a live radio schedule and created huge new transnational audiences. But how can the burgeoning influence of audio storytelling be harnessed in educational and community sectors? This article examines an initiative designed to advance the use of audio storytelling in educational contexts: the emotional history project, an intensive teaching model that trains undergraduate students with no prior audio experience to create powerful short audio stories in a 4 x 3 hour module. It relies on the capacity of audio to convey emotion, and the power of emotion to transcend social, cultural and racial differences and forge a visceral connection. By gathering deeply personal emotional moments, students not only have a heightened incentive to learn technical production skills, they are also motivated to consider ethical issues and vital principles of empathy and responsibility.

The Brussels Mood Inductive Audio Stories (MIAS) database

Through this study, we aimed to validate a new tool for inducing moods in experimental contexts. Five audio stories with sad, joyful, frightening, erotic, or neutral content were presented to 60 participants (33 women, 27 men) in a within-subjects design, each for about 10min. Participants were asked (1) to report their moods before and after listening to each story, (2) to assess the emotional content of the excerpts on various emotional scales, and (3) to rate their level of projection into the stories. The results confirmed our a priori emotional classification. The emotional stories were effective in inducing the desired mood, with no difference found between male and female participants. These stories therefore constitute a valuable corpus for inducing moods in French-speaking participants, and they are made freely available for use in scientific research.