Voice Guidance Research Articles

Voice Guidance and Emotional Prosody during Finger Movement in Stroke Patients: an fMRI Study

Voice Guidance and Emotional Prosody during Finger Movement in Stroke Patients: an fMRI Study

Route guidance system having voice guidance capability

In a route guidance system, when depression of a PTT switch is detected in the middle of voice guidance of respective guidance landmarks located in a guidance route, recognition of a voice command inputted through a microphone is initiated, When the recognized voice command is identified as one of a next setting command and a return setting command, the voice guidance of the guidance landmarks is sequentially provided starting from a corresponding one of a previous guidance landmark and a next guidance landmark in consistency with the one of the next setting command and the return setting command. When the recognized voice command is other than the next setting command and the return setting command, setting and/or resetting of the guidance route are performed based on the type of the corresponding guidance landmark and the recognized command.

超指向性音響システムとその応用(振動・音響計測・制御技術,特別オーガナイズドセッション「音色・音質設計技術〜開発者と利用者・第三者を繋ぐ」,振動・騒音改善技術)

Parametric loudspeakers can deliver sound to a defined spot in a room by producing waves that focus like a laser beam. The high-directivity sound system, based on this theory, has a wide area of prospective applications including voice guidance system for exhibition halls and public facilities. This report outlines the configuration of our high-directivity sound system and some application examples.

In-vehicle GPS/DR navigation system development and test results in Singapore

This paper introduces the in-car navigation system prototype development and test results under the context of Singapore. In the system, integrated GPS/DR is used for continuous vehicle positioning. A digital road network map database is built for the whole Singapore. The database is designed to support map matching, route determination, and route guidance functions. The prototype system demonstrates GPS positioning of the vehicle in real-time, tracking the vehicle onto a digital map with fix updates every one or two seconds. With the map matched vehicle location on the map, voice and/or text guidance is provide to the driver. The vehicle position can also be transferred to control centre through communication data link for the purpose of fleet management.

Navigation apparatus for navigating a vehicle based on symbolic sounds

A navigation apparatus includes a command input block from which the user inputs a command signal, a current positional data supply unit, a data reading unit for reading from a CD-ROM map data, voice guidance data, object data about an object displayed on a map of the navigation apparatus, and sound data symbolizing a geographical location corresponding to the object on the map, and a controller for displaying the map and the object onto a display device and sounding the voice guidance and sound data from a speaker.

Effects of Traffic Information on Driver's Judgment of Curve Sharpness

The effects of information on a driver's judgment of curve sharpness were investigated by he personal computer simulation system. Three kinds of traffic sign and three kinds of voice guidance system were proposed to inform curve depth accurately. Six curve sections were picked up for sharpness assessment. Both a sign and a voice guidance pattem were superimposed on the driving scene using Adobe premiere 6.0. The 289 subjects estimated the sharpness subjectively. They saw six different curve patterns displayed on the computer screen. Also, they selected one cue among four cues as the most imporant cue for judging curve sharpness. Scatter plots of pre-judgment scores vs. post-judgment scores are used to analyze the effects of information on sharpness judgment. As a result, the adequate information indicated a positive effect on sharpness estimatin. The video scene was the largest factor for sharpness estimation. The effects of proposed traffic sign were larger than those of the voice guidance system. In addition, sharpness judgment at the left curve was more sensitive than that at the right curve. It should be noted that post-judgment score did not varied widely by pre-judgment scores. There are certain limitations to using the simple simulation system.

Development of night-vision system

A night-vision system has been developed to help reduce vehicle-pedestrian accidents occurring at night. High-temperature objects assumed to be pedestrians are detected by processing the images from infrared stereo cameras mounted on the. vehicle, and the possibility of a collision is judged by calculating the position and relative moving vectors of the pedestrian. In addition, voice guidance is provided and a highlighted infrared image of the pedestrian is displayed at the bottom of the front windshield using a head-up display (HUD). It was determined that the system could judge the possibility of collisions with pedestrians on the road or crossing the road.

Effects of Memory Retrieval Load on Drivers’ Reproduction Performance Under Route Searching

Experiments were conducted using a personal computer to study the human factors involved in information processing during route searching. The primary objective was to investigate the effects of differences in the amount of memory retrieval load in terms of a given task. Two route-searching tasks were combined with two memory-reproducing tasks, for four types of tasks. The subjects used either a map guidance system or a voice guidance system to trace a predetermined route to the destination in a simulated driving test. In addition, the subjects were asked to perform memory-reproducing tasks using working memory. In these tasks, the subjects memorized the same number of traffic signs, but there was a difference in the memory retrieval process that the tasks demanded. The subjects were 62 students at Hokkaido University. Multiple analysis of variance was used to analyze the interaction effects and the main effects of tasks. The results indicated that the accuracy of route searching, the response time of route searching, and the accuracy of reproducing memorized traffic signs increased as the memory retrieval load decreased. This suggests that the memory retrieval process affects the performance of drivers’ information processing.

Car navigation system

A car navigation system comprises a sound output means for selectively changing the voice sent to a speaker between male voice and female voice in accordance with the advancing direction of the vehicle. In addition, using a plurality of speakers, the voice guidance is given from a direction identical with the advancing direction of the vehicle. Furthermore, stereo sound generated from the speakers can be selectively attenuated in accordance with the advancing direction of the vehicle, so that the driver of a vehicle can intuitionally perceive or grasp the correct advancing direction of his/her driving vehicle, while listening stereo sounds.

Information Used by Visually Impaired People While Walking

As part of the efforts to help visually impaired people participate in society, tactile ground surface indicators are installed along roadways in Japan. Recent years have observed the beginning of studies of voice guidance along sidewalks. But, for visually impaired people to actually walk alone to their destinations, they must confirm each intersection and continually check their location against a mental map. It is important to conduct studies to clarify how visually impaired people obtain these kinds of information and what forms of information provision (voice guidance) should be provided to support this process. To this end, this research project involved interviews with 20 visually impaired people concerning the information they use when walking and experiments conducted with the help of 12 visually impaired people to find out which locations along sidewalks require voice guidance. The results revealed that as visually impaired people walk, they confirm their location by means of information ranging from unchangeable features, such as facilities along the route and the shape of the sidewalk, to the sounds and smells of shops they pass. Results also indicated that voice guidance should be provided where two four-lane roads intersect, but that if too many voice guidance points are provided close together, visually impaired people might become confused. It is vital that future road improvement planning incorporate the findings of this study to create spaces where visually impaired people can walk safely and comfortably.

自動車用ディスプレイにおける視認性評価とその応用

In recent years, as vehicle technology has advanced, the use of on-board display devices has increased. In particular, vehicles with navigation systems are rapidly increasing in use. With such systems, when a driver operates a vehicle, the driver detects and judges road situations while looking at the route-guided map on the navigation system display. Thus, from the safety point of view, improvement of visibility of the navigation system is very important. We have developed a noncontact gaze duration measurement system for on-board navigation systems. The system uses a TV camera on the dashboard to detect the driver's eye movements that are illuminated by infrared rays. In addition, the usefulness of the navigation system with voice route guidance compared with a conventional nonvoice system is demonstrated using measurements based on this method in the daytime and at night time. It is clear that the voice guidance is effective in decreasing gaze duration.

A Meta-Analysis of Driver Eye-Scanning Behavior While Navigating

A meta-comparison of link analyses was performed using two eye scanning studies. One study was an analysis of the Etak navigator performed by Antin, Dingus, Hulse and Wierwille, (1990). Antin and his associates compared the Etak system to a paper map control condition and a memorized route baseline condition. The second study was an evaluation of the TravTek system performed by Dingus, McGehee, Hulse, Jahns, Natarajan, Mollenhauer and Fleischman (1995). The TravTek Camera Car Evaluation tested six different navigation conditions (a TravTek visual display of a full, heading-up route map with voice guidance, the same TravTek route map without voice guidance, a TravTek visual display showing a graphic representation of static turn-by-turn information, the same turn-by-turn screens without voice guidance, a textual paper direction list with large legible font, and a conventional paper map). The eye glance data shown in the comparison of these two studies revealed several interesting findings. In all conditions, scanning of instruments, mirrors and signs/ landmarks was a low frequency occurrence and largely constant. Increases in visual attention by a navigation condition draws attention from forward, left and right roadway scanning resources. Thus, navigating draws upon potentially valuable accident avoidance resources in some circumstances. The eye scanning results also shared the relative benefits of the addition of a highlighted route to a moving map display, the simplification of a visual display from a full map to a turn-by-turn graphic, and the addition of a voice supplement to a navigation aid.

Simulation study of driving performance with selected route guidance systems

Experiments were conducted in a driving simulator developed by the Hughes Aircraft Corporation to study the human factors aspects of route guidance systems. The primary objective of this research was to study how in-vehicle route guidance system attributes, driver characteristics, and traffic conditions affect driving performance. Four types of route guidance systems were tested. They are: (1) Paper Map, (2) Heads Down Electronic Map, (3) Heads Up Display (HUD) in combination with Electronic Map, and (4) Voice Guidance in combination with Electronic Map. Data were collected for a total of 18 subjects, 9 male and 9 female. All subjects were tested in all four route guidance systems. The following performance measures were collected in the simulator: Number of Navigation Errors and Reaction times to external events. Apart from these, an unobstrusive eye tracker was also used to monitor eye fixations. Data were also collected on driver preferences and subjective workload associated with each of the four route guidance systems. The results of the study can be summarized as follows: (a) Subjective workload, user perceptions, eye tracker dwelling times, and number of errors all indicated that the voice guidance/electronic map combination performed the best, and the paper map the worst. The electronic map was found to be the second best, closely followed by the HUD electronic map. (b) The reaction time modelling yielded slightly different device performance depending on the event being reacted to. The heads up display/electronic map combination performed much better in comparison to its performance in the other performance measures, with voice/electronic map also doing well. The paper map again consistently performed the worst. (c) Driving performance did vary with gender and experience. Not surprisingly, drivers with higher experience performed better than drivers with lower experience. This effect was more prominent among females than males.