Free-speech in a virtual world: A user-centred approach for developing speech commands

In many speech recognition applications, users are required to follow strict rules and vocabularies that can sometimes affect system performance. In principle, if a speech metaphor is well designed there it can be intuitive, taking the burden of interaction away from physical input devices and increasing opportunities for multi-modal interaction. In order to investigate the concept of developing intuitive speech commands., a trial was conducted where participants were allowed to speak freely, using any words they wished, for navigation and object manipulation within a virtual reality training application. The underlying principle was that free-speech is more intuitive as it does not have to be pre-learnt. By analysing the commands people naturally use, it might then be possible to identify the most and least common used commands as well as develop generic command vocabularies for future use.