This book evaluates the impact of relevant factors affecting the results of speech quality assessment studies carried out in crowdsourcing. The author describes how these factors relate to the test structure, the effect of environmental background noise, and the influence of language differences. He details multiple user-centered studies that have been conducted to derive guidelines for reliable collection of speech quality scores in crowdsourcing. Specifically, different questions are addressed such as the optimal number of speech samples to include in a listening task, the influence of the environmental background noise in the speech quality ratings, as well as methods for classifying background noise from web audio recordings, or the impact of language proficiency in the user perception of speech quality. Ultimately, the results of these studies contributed to the definition of the ITU-T Recommendation P.808 that defines the guidelines to conduct speech quality studies in crowdsourcing.
This book provides an overview of concepts and challenges in intis investigated using structural equation modeling. The conveyed understanding of gaming QoE, empirical eraction quality in the domain of cloud gaming services. The author presents a unified evaluation approach by combining quantitative subjective assessment methods in a concise way. The author discusses a measurement tool, Gaming Input Quality Scale (GIPS), that assesses the interaction quality of such a service available. Furthermore, the author discusses a new framework to assess gaming Quality of Experience (QoE) using a crowdsourcing approach. Lastly, based on a large dataset including dominant network and encoding conditions, the evaluation method is investigated using structural equation modeling. The conveyed understanding of gaming QoE, empirical findings, and models presented in this book should be of particular interest to researchers working in the fields of quality and usability engineering, as well as service providers and network operators.
This book provides an understanding of the impact of delay on cloud gaming Quality of Experience (QoE) and proposes techniques to compensate for this impact, leading to a better gaming experience when there are network delays. The author studies why some games in the cloud are more delay sensitive than others by identifying game characteristics influencing a user's delay perception and predicting the gaming QoE degraded by the delay. The author also investigates the impact of jitter and serial-position effects on gaming QoE and delay. Using the insight gained, the author presents delay compensation techniques that can mitigate the negative influence of delay on gaming QoE that use the game characteristics to adapt the games.
This pioneering book develops definitions and concepts related to Quality of Experience in the context of multimedia- and telecommunications-related applications, systems and services and applies these to various fields of communication and media technologies. The editors bring together numerous key-protagonists of the new discipline “Quality of Experience” and combine the state-of-the-art knowledge in one single volume.
As the outcome of the Dagstuhl Seminar 15481 on Crowdsourcing and Human-Centered Experiments, this book is a primer for computer science researchers who intend to use crowdsourcing technology for human centered experiments. The focus of this Dagstuhl seminar, held in Dagstuhl Castle in November 2015, was to discuss experiences and methodological considerations when using crowdsourcing platforms to run human-centered experiments to test the effectiveness of visual representations. The inspiring Dagstuhl atmosphere fostered discussions and brought together researchers from different research directions. The papers provide information on crowdsourcing technology and experimental methodologies, comparisons between crowdsourcing and lab experiments, the use of crowdsourcing for visualisation, psychology, QoE and HCI empirical studies, and finally the nature of crowdworkers and their work, their motivation and demographic background, as well as the relationships among people forming the crowdsourcing community.
The pervasive influence of technology continuously shapes our daily lives. From smartphones to smart homes, technology is revolutionizing the way we live, work and interact with each other. Human-computer interaction (HCI) is a multidisciplinary research field focusing on the study of people interacting with information technology and plays a critical role in the development of computing systems that work well for the people using them, ensuring the seamless integration of interactive systems into our technologically driven lifestyles. The book series contains six volumes providing extensive coverage of the field, wherein each one addresses different theoretical and practical aspects of the HCI discipline. Readers will discover a wealth of information encompassing the foundational elements, state-of-the-art review in established and emerging domains, analysis of contemporary advancements brought about by the evolution of interactive technologies and artificial intelligence, as well as the emergence of diverse societal needs and application domains. These books: · Showcase the pivotal role of HCI in designing interactive applications across a diverse array of domains. · Explore the dynamic relationship between humans and intelligent environments, with a specific emphasis on the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). · Provide an extensive exploration of interaction design by examining a wide range of technologies, interaction techniques, styles and devices. · Discuss user experience methods and tools for the design of user-friendly products and services. · Bridge the gap between software engineering and human-computer interaction practices for usability, inclusion and sustainability. These volumes are an essential read for individuals interested in human-computer interaction research and applications.
This book covers user experience methods and tools in designing user‐friendly products and servicesby encompassing widely utilized successful methods, including elicitation, analysis and establishment of requirements, collaborative idea generation with design teams and intended users, prototype testing and evaluation of the user experience through empirical and non‐empirical means. This book • Provides methods and tools tailored for each stage of the design process. • Discusses methods for the active involvement of users in the human‐centered design process. • Equips readers with an effective toolset for use throughout the design process, ensuring that what is created aligns with user needs and desires. • Covers a wide array of research and evaluation methods employed in HCI, from the initiation of the human‐centered development cycle to its culmination. This book is a fascinating read for individuals interested in Human-Computer Interaction research and applications.
Crowdsourcing is an emerging paradigm that promises to transform several domains: creative work, business work, cultural cooperation, etc. Crowdsourcing reflects the close-knit interplay between the latest computer technologies, the rapidly changing work model of the 21st century, and the very nature of people. The interplay makes for an exciting but at the same time challenging new field to investigate under the lens of a diverse set of disciplines, ranging from the technical to the social and from the theoretical to the applied. Early research has focused on an aspect of crowdsourcing known as micro-tasking. Micro-tasks are simple tasks (like image annotations) that anyone could perform. An emerging area is how to utilize crowdsourcing to solve problems that go beyond simple tasks towards more complex ones, that require collaboration and creativity. In juxtaposition to micro-task crowdsourcing, this book investigates macro-task crowdsourcing and its potential.
This book studies the motivation of crowdworkers to find out how to attract more people and reach a higher quality of outcomes. The book first proposes a taxonomy for studying the motivation of crowdworkers including the potential influencing factors, different types of motivation, and possible consequences and outcomes related to the motivation. Next, the CWMS questionnaire, an instrument for measuring the underlying motivation of crowdworkers is developed. It considers different dimensions of motivation suggested by the Self-Determination Theory of motivation which is a well-established and empirically validated psychological theory used in various domains. This instrument can be used to study the effect of platform and user characteristics on the general motivation of crowdworkers. Later, the task-specific motivation of crowdworkers is studied in detail: Influencing factors are investigated, subjective methods for measuring them are evaluated, a model for predicting worker’s decision on taking a task is proposed, the relative importance of different factors for two populations of crowdworkers is studied, and finally, a model for predicting the expected workload (as one of the major influencing factors) given the task design is proposed.
Sound, devoid of meaning, would not matter to us. It is the information sound conveys that helps the brain to understand its environment. Sound and its underlying meaning are always associated with time and space. There is no sound without spatial properties, and the brain always organizes this information within a temporal–spatial framework. This book is devoted to understanding the importance of meaning for spatial and related further aspects of hearing, including cross-modal inference. People, when exposed to acoustic stimuli, do not react directly to what they hear but rather to what they hear means to them. This semiotic maxim may not always apply, for instance, when the reactions are reflexive. But, where it does apply, it poses a major challenge to the builders of models of the auditory system. Take, for example, an auditory model that is meant to be implemented on a robotic agent for autonomous search-&-rescue actions. Or think of a system that can perform judgments on the sound quality of multimedia-reproduction systems. It becomes immediately clear that such a system needs • Cognitive capabilities, including substantial inherent knowledge • The ability to integrate information across different sensory modalities To realize these functions, the auditory system provides a pair of sensory organs, the two ears, and the means to perform adequate preprocessing of the signals provided by the ears. This is realized in the subcortical parts of the auditory system. In the title of a prior book, the term Binaural Listening is used to indicate a focus on sub-cortical functions. Psychoacoustics and auditory signal processing contribute substantially to this area. The preprocessed signals are then forwarded to the cortical parts of the auditory system where, among other things, recognition, classification, localization, scene analysis, assignment of meaning, quality assessment, and action planning take place. Also, information from different sensory modalities is integrated at this level. Between sub-cortical and cortical regions of the auditory system, numerous feedback loops exist that ultimately support the high complexity and plasticity of the auditory system. The current book concentrates on these cognitive functions. Instead of processing signals, processing symbols is now the predominant modeling task. Substantial contributions to the field draw upon the knowledge acquired by cognitive psychology. The keyword Binaural Understanding in the book title characterizes this shift. Both books, The Technology of Binaural Listening and the current one, have been stimulated and supported by AABBA, an open research group devoted to the development and application of models of binaural hearing. The current book is dedicated to technologies that help explain, facilitate, apply, and support various aspects of binaural understanding. It is organized into five parts, each containing three to six chapters in order to provide a comprehensive overview of this emerging area. Each chapter was thoroughly reviewed by at least two anonymous, external experts. The first part deals with the psychophysical and physiological effects of Forming and Interpreting Aural Objects as well as the underlying models. The fundamental concepts of reflexive and reflective auditory feedback are introduced. Mechanisms of binaural attention and attention switching are covered—as well as how auditory Gestalt rules facilitate binaural understanding. A general blackboard architecture is introduced as an example of how machines can learn to form and interpret aural objects to simulate human cognitive listening. The second part, Configuring and Understanding Aural Space, focuses on the human understanding of complex three-dimensional environments—covering the psychological and biological fundamentals of auditory space formation. This part further addresses the human mechanisms used to process information and interact in complex reverberant environments, such as concert halls and forests, and additionally examines how the auditory system can learn to understand and adapt to these environments. The third part is dedicated to Processing Cross-Modal Inference and highlights the fundamental human mechanisms used to integrate auditory cues with cues from other modalities to localize and form perceptual objects. This part also provides a general framework for understanding how complex multimodal scenes can be simulated and rendered. The fourth part, Evaluating Aural-scene Quality and Speech Understanding, focuses on the object-forming aspects of binaural listening and understanding. It addresses cognitive mechanisms involved in both the understanding of speech and the processing of nonverbal information such as Sound Quality and Quality-of- Experience. The aesthetic judgment of rooms is also discussed in this context. Models that simulate underlying human processes and performance are covered in addition to techniques for rendering virtual environments that can then be used to test these models. The fifth part deals with the Application of Cognitive Mechanisms to Audio Technology. It highlights how cognitive mechanisms can be utilized to create spatial auditory illusions using binaural and other 3D-audio technologies. Further, it covers how cognitive binaural technologies can be applied to improve human performance in auditory displays and to develop new auditory technologies for interactive robots. The book concludes with the application of cognitive binaural technologies to the next generation of hearing aids.
