Goooood RoooBoot
They don't understand the children; maybe also the children don't understand them!
There are numerous videos on the internet of cute children and smart assistants who fail to understand the children. This is happening because the Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology is not yet fully functional with children's speech. While this shows one side of the problem, since the conversations between children and these devices do not go any further, we cannot see the next step. After I watched a considerable amount of these videos, the question emerged: "Do children actually understand these devices?"
Infant-directed Speech (AKA. Child-directed Speech, Baby Talk) is a way that parents use to talk to their new born babies until they grow and develop language enough to make their own sentences and start using the language in a more sophisticated way. Researchers have found that children of under certain age prefer to be talked to in this way which also improves their comprehension. While we try to make the devices as effortless to use for the end users, why can't they talk to children in a way that is more understandable and favourable for them?
The "Goooood RoooBoot" project tries to answer this question and investigate the effects of using IDS in modern digital technologies for children.
Stay tuned for the updates in Early 2023.