A study on the Lombard Effect in telepresence robotics

GIPSA-lab, University Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, Grenoble, France
LIG, University Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, Grenoble, France
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.28007v1
Subject Areas
Animal Behavior, Human-Computer Interaction
Keywords
Lombard effect, voice intensity, telepresence, robot, speech in noise
Copyright
© 2019 Davat et al.
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
Davat A, Feng G, Aubergé V. 2019. A study on the Lombard Effect in telepresence robotics. PeerJ Preprints 7:e28007v1

Abstract

In this study, we present a new experiment in order to study the Lombard effect in telepresence robotics. In this experiment, one person talks with a robot controled remotely by someone in a different room. The remote pilot (R) is immersed in both environments, while the local interlocutor (L) interacts directly with the robot. In this context, the position of the noise source, in the remote or in the local room, may modify the subjects’ voice adaptations. In order to study in details this phenomenon, we propose four particular conditions: no added noise, noise in room R heard only by R, virtual noise in room L heard only by R, and noise in room L heard by both R and L. We measured the variations of maximum intensity in order to quantify the Lombard effect. Our results show that there is indeed a modification of voice intensity in all noisy conditions. However, the amplitude of this modification varies depending on the condition.

Author Comment

This work was accepted for the second international workshop on Vocal Interactivity in-and-between Humans, Animals and Robots (VIHAR 2019).

Supplemental Information

VIHAR - presentation

These are the slides presented at the VIHAR conference.

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.28007v1/supp-1

Noises used during the experiment

The sounds coffee0-4 were played condition B.

The sounds robot0-3 were played in condition C.

The sounds drill0-3 were played in condition D.

Note : These audio files are not normalized. Before the experiment, the volumes of the three sound sources were tuned in order to measure about 55 dB(A) with a sound level meter.

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.28007v1/supp-2