Speakers' head and gaze dynamics weakly correlate in group conversation

Vrzáková, Hana; Bednarik, Roman; Nakano, Yukiko I.; Nihei, Fumio

doi:10.1145/2857491.2857522

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…The idea of gaze-steering technology comes with the assumption that the gaze orientation is a better predictor of the listener's attention than head orientation, especially in meetings and conversations (Vrzakova, Bednarik, Nakano, & Nihei, 2016). People often undershoot sound targets with their head angle (Grange & Culling, 2016 b), although head movement magnitudes vary between individuals (Fuller, 1992).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Interaction of Head and Gaze Control With Acoustic Beam Width of a Simulated Beamformer in a Two-Talker Scenario

et al. 2019

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Superdirectional acoustic beamforming technology provides a high signal-to-noise ratio, but potential speech intelligibility benefits to hearing aid users are limited by the way the users move their heads. Steering the beamformer using eye gaze instead of head orientation could mitigate this problem. This study investigated the intelligibility of target speech with a dynamically changing direction when heard through gaze-controlled (GAZE) or head-controlled (HEAD) superdirectional simulated beamformers. The beamformer provided frequency-independent noise attenuation of either 8 dB (WIDE [moderately directional]) or 12 dB (NARROW [highly directional]) relative to no beamformer referred as the OMNI (omni-directional) condition. Before the main experiment, signal-to-noise ratios were normalized for each participant and each beam width condition to yield equal percentage of correct performance in a reference condition. Hence, results are presented as normalized speech intelligibility (NSI). In an ongoing presentation, the participants ( n = 17), of varying degree of hearing loss, heard single-word targets every 1.5 s coming from either left (−30°) or right (+30°) presented in continuous, spatially distributed, speech-shaped noise. When the target was static, NSI was better in the GAZE than in the HEAD condition, but only when the beam was NARROW. When the target switched location without warning, NSI performance dropped. In this case, the WIDE HEAD condition provided the best average NSI performance, because some participants tended to orient their head in between the targets, allowing them to hear out the target regardless of location. The difference in NSI between GAZE and HEAD conditions for individual participants was related to the observed head-orientation strategy, which varied widely across participants.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Interaction of Head and Gaze Control With Acoustic Beam Width of a Simulated Beamformer in a Two-Talker Scenario

et al. 2019

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“…Furthermore, the output from our proposed model could also be combined with other information to provide a more nuanced prediction of users’ auditory attention. For example, eye tracking data could be combined with head tracking data to provide extra information, as head movement and eye gaze have been shown to be only weakly correlate in group conversation ( Vrzakova et al, 2016 ), suggesting there is additional information that could be utilized. The input from other sensors could also be fused to cross-validate each other, so the HMM could be better tuned.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sound Source Selection Based on Head Movements in Natural Group Conversation

Brimijoin²

2022

Trends in Hearing

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To optimally improve signal-to-noise ratio in noisy environments, a hearing assistance device must correctly identify what is signal and what is noise. Many of the biosignal-based approaches to solving this question are themselves subject to noise, but head angle is an overt behavior that may be possible to capture in practical devices in the real world. Previous orientation studies have demonstrated that head angle is systematically related to listening target; our study aimed to examine whether this relationship is sufficiently reliable to be used in group conversations where participants may be seated in different layouts and the listener is free to turn their body as well as their head. In addition to this simple method, we developed a source-selection algorithm based on a hidden Markov model (HMM) trained on listeners’ head movement. The performance of this model and the simple head-steering method was evaluated using publicly available behavioral data. Head angle during group conversation was predictive of active talker, exhibiting an undershoot with a slope consistent with that found in simple orientation studies, but the intercept of the linear relationship was different for different talker layouts, suggesting it would be problematic to rely exclusively on this information to predict the location of auditory attention. Provided the location of all target talkers is known, the HMM source selection model implemented here, however, showed significantly lower error in identifying listeners’ auditory attention than the linear head-steering method.

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“…Other dissociations between eye and head movements have been reported in the literature. During conversations, eye movements are minimally correlated to head movement ( Collins and Barnes, 1999 ; Chen et al, 2012 ; Vrzakova et al, 2016 ; Grange et al, 2018 ; Hadley et al, 2019 ). Gaze behavior also plays a role in balance through the Vestibular-Ocular Reflex.…”

Section: Head-body Interactionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Head movement and its relation to hearing

et al. 2023

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Head position at any point in time plays a fundamental role in shaping the auditory information that reaches a listener, information that continuously changes as the head moves and reorients to different listening situations. The connection between hearing science and the kinesthetics of head movement has gained interest due to technological advances that have increased the feasibility of providing behavioral and biological feedback to assistive listening devices that can interpret movement patterns that reflect listening intent. Increasing evidence also shows that the negative impact of hearing deficits on mobility, gait, and balance may be mitigated by prosthetic hearing device intervention. Better understanding of the relationships between head movement, full body kinetics, and hearing health, should lead to improved signal processing strategies across a range of assistive and augmented hearing devices. The purpose of this review is to introduce the wider hearing community to the kinesiology of head movement and to place it in the context of hearing and communication with the goal of expanding the field of ecologically-specific listener behavior.

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Speakers' head and gaze dynamics weakly correlate in group conversation

Cited by 8 publications

References 36 publications

On the Interaction of Head and Gaze Control With Acoustic Beam Width of a Simulated Beamformer in a Two-Talker Scenario

On the Interaction of Head and Gaze Control With Acoustic Beam Width of a Simulated Beamformer in a Two-Talker Scenario

Sound Source Selection Based on Head Movements in Natural Group Conversation

Head movement and its relation to hearing

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