Media and Communication

Ways to support non-native speakers in a conference call

- How transmission lags influence multilingual communication -

Abstract

Previous research has shown that audio communication is particularly difficult for non-native speakers (NNS) during multilingual collaborations. NNS are overburdened both by having to communicate with imperfect language skills, and by the need to compensate for distorted audio signals. To give NNS more time to process conversations, we tested the insertion of silent gaps (from 0.2 to 0.4 seconds) between conversational turns, and observed a significant improvement in NNS’ understanding of pre-recorded conversations. In a real-time audio conference, an added artificial delay between the conversations of native speakers provided a combination of beneficial and detrimental effects for both native and non-native speakers. The findings have implications as regards how audio conferencing can be improved for NNS.

Poster


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Reference

  1. Yamashita, N., Echenique, A., Ishida, T., Hautasaari, A. "Lost in Transmittance: How Transmission Lag Enhances and Deteriorates Multilingual Collaboration," in Proc. CSCW'13, (pp. 923-934), 2013.
  2. H.Sugiyama, Y.Minami, “Estimation of substantial user information-request for informational assistance system,” The Transactions of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers. A (Japanese edition), Vol. J95-A, No. 1, pp. 74-84, 2012.

Presentor

Naomi Yamashita
Naomi Yamashita
Media Information Laboratory
Toshihiro Takada
Toshihiro Takada
Media Information Laboratory
Shigemi Aoyagi
Shigemi Aoyagi
Media Information Laboratory