Vocal interactivity in crowds, flocks and swarms: implications for voice user interfaces

Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.27981v1
Subject Areas
Animal Behavior, Human-Computer Interaction
Keywords
vocal interactivity, crowd behaviour, swarm behaviour, flocking behaviour, voice user interfaces, vocal synchrony, vocal simulation
Copyright
© 2019 Moore
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Moore RK. 2019. Vocal interactivity in crowds, flocks and swarms: implications for voice user interfaces. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27981v1

Abstract

Recent years have seen an explosion in the availability of Voice User Interfaces. However, user surveys suggest that there are issues with respect to usability, and it has been hypothesised that contemporary voice-enabled systems are missing crucial behaviours relating to user engagement and vocal interactivity. However, it is well established that such ostensive behaviours are ubiquitous in the animal kingdom, and that vocalisation provides a means through which interaction may be coordinated and managed between individuals and within groups. Hence, this paper reports results from a study aimed at identifying generic mechanisms that might underpin coordinated collective vocal behaviour with a particular focus on closed-loop negative-feedback control as a powerful regulatory process. A computer-based real-time simulation of vocal interactivity is described which has provided a number of insights, including the enumeration of a number of key control variables that may be worthy of further investigation.

Author Comment

This is a preprint submission to PeerJ Preprints.