Examining voice assistants in the context of children’s speechMin Kyong Kim, Stefania Druga, Shaghayegh Esmaeili, Julia Woodward, Alex Shaw, Ayushi Jain, Jaida Langham, Kristy Hollingshead, Silvia B Lovato, Erin Beneteau, Jaime Ruiz, Lisa Anthony, Alexis Hiniker

An estimated 3.25 billion voice assistants (VAs) are in homes around the world, but these devices are not always able to recognize and respond to children’s speech. To inform the design of VAs that support kids, we report on a lab study where 28 5- to 10-year-old participants interacted with a commercial VA to: (1) attempt to execute common VA-supported requests (such as setting an alarm), (2) recite a set of such scripts verbatim, and (3) engage in unstructured conversation. We find that devices only respond appropriately to the content of children’s speech half of the time. Frequency of appropriate responses increased with children’s age and as their discourse became more standardized. Based on themes in participants’ speech, we identify design opportunities in child-VA interaction, such as exploring a topic or responding to a conversational bid. In addition to our empirical findings, we contribute a structured corpus of children’s speech.

Authors

  • Headshot of Jaime Ruiz wearing a HololensJaime Ruiz
  • Julia Woodward

    • As well as: Min Kyong Kim, Stefania Druga, Shaghayegh Esmaeili, Alex Shaw, Ayushi Jain, Jaida Langham, Kristy Hollingshead, Silvia B Lovato, Erin Beneteau, Lisa Anthony, Alexis Hiniker

Citation

Min Kyong Kim, Stefania Druga, Shaghayegh Esmaeili, Julia Woodward, Alex Shaw, Ayushi Jain, Jaida Langham, Kristy Hollingshead, Silvia B Lovato, Erin Beneteau, Jaime Ruiz, Lisa Anthony, Alexis Hiniker. 2022. Examining voice assistants in the context of children’s speech, International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, Volume 34, 2022.

Bibtex

@article{KIM2022100540,
title = {Examining voice assistants in the context of children’s speech},
journal = {International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction},
volume = {34},
pages = {100540},
year = {2022},
issn = {2212-8689},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2022.100540},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212868922000587},
author = {Min Kyong Kim and Stefania Druga and Shaghayegh Esmaeili and Julia Woodward and Alex Shaw and Ayushi Jain and Jaida Langham and Kristy Hollingshead and Silvia B Lovato and Erin Beneteau and Jaime Ruiz and Lisa Anthony and Alexis Hiniker},
keywords = {Child–computer interaction, Voice assistants, Smart devices},
abstract = {An estimated 3.25 billion voice assistants (VAs) are in homes around the world, but these devices are not always able to recognize and respond to children’s speech. To inform the design of VAs that support kids, we report on a lab study where 28 5- to 10-year-old participants interacted with a commercial VA to: (1) attempt to execute common VA-supported requests (such as setting an alarm), (2) recite a set of such scripts verbatim, and (3) engage in unstructured conversation. We find that devices only respond appropriately to the content of children’s speech half of the time. Frequency of appropriate responses increased with children’s age and as their discourse became more standardized. Based on themes in participants’ speech, we identify design opportunities in child-VA interaction, such as exploring a topic or responding to a conversational bid. In addition to our empirical findings, we contribute a structured corpus of children’s speech.}
}

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