MAS.632 Conversational Computer Systems - MIT OpenCourseWare

USES OF VOICE INPUT
Sole IW,1 Cannal
Using Speech Recognition
The previous chapter offered an overview of speech recognition techniques and
the difficulty of identifying the words in a speech signal. This chapter discusses
how speech recognition can be used in applications. It examines the merits as
well as the constraints of using voice input, which limit the classes of applications
for which it is suitable. Because the dominant difficulty with using speech recognition
devices is usually their poor performance, this chapter emphasizes interaction
techniques to manage recognition errors. Finally, several case studies in
applications of voice input are detailed.
Voice input can be suitable to an application for one of several reasons. In some
circumstances, no other input channel may be available due to the lack of an
interface device such as a keyboard or mouse. Even when alternative input
devices are available, speech recognition may be more efficient; we can speak
faster than we write or type. Voice can also be employed effectively when the
user's hands and eyes are occupied with another task.
Regardless of its limitations, voice input is useful when no other input mode is
available or when alternative modes present only limited functionality. For this
reason, speech recognition currently attracts wide interest from the manually­