Improving broadcast accessibility for hard of hearing individuals : using object-based audio personalisation and narrative importance

Technological advances in broadcasting can be the impetus for advances in accessibility services. For the 11 million individuals in the United Kingdom with some degree of hearing loss, the advent of object-based broadcasting and it’s personalisation features has the potential to facilitate a transition towards more accessible broadcast audio. Part I of this work conducts a systematic review of previous object-based accessibility research, identifying the personalisation of redundant non-speech objects as a potentially high impact yet unexplored area of research. Guided by these findings, and the results of a survey of end-user needs, the specific research questions of this work are then developed as:- What is the relationship between redundant non-speech audio objects and broadcast speech intelligibility, for normal and hard of hearing listeners? - Can a system be designed which allows end-users to control the balance between audio objects for dramatic content which is simple to use and preserves comprehension? Part II of this work shows that the presence of redundant non-speech sounds improve speech recognition in noise in normal hearing listeners, even when the sound partially masks the speech. Subsequent investigations show that this effect exists within hard of hearing cohorts also, and the benefit yielded by non-speech sounds can be predicted by the severity of hearing loss in an individual's better hearing ear. Part III work translates these novel findings into practical broadcast accessibility technology, through the development of a new conceptual framework called: `Narrative Importance’. Based on this framework, production tools and an end-user interface are developed and deployed in a large scale public trial. The results of this trial demonstrate that this new approach to accessible audio can deliver content which is more enjoyable with reduced energetic masking of speech, whilst still maintaining the creative integrity and comprehension of the content

Intelligibility vs. comprehension : understanding quality of accessible next-generation audio broadcast

For traditional broadcasting formats, imple-mentation of accessible audio strategies for hard of hear-ing people have used a binary, intelligibility-based ap-proach. In this approach sounds are categorized eitheras speech, contributing to comprehension of content,or non-speech, which can mask the speech and reduceintelligibility. Audio accessibility solutions have there-fore focused on speech enhancement type methods, forwhich several useful standard objective measures of qual-ity exist. Recent developments in next-generation broad-cast audio formats, in particular the roll out of object-based audio, facilitate more in-depth personalisationof the audio experience based on user preferences andneeds. Recent research has demonstrated that manynon-speech sounds do not strictly behave as maskersbut can be critical for comprehension of the narrativefor some viewers. This complex relationship betweenspeech, non-speech audio and the viewer necessitate amore holistic approach to understanding quality of ex-perience of accessible media. This paper reviews pre-vious work and outlines such an approach, discussingaccessibility strategies using next-generation audio for-mats and their implications for developing effective as-sessments of quality

Modelling Experts’ Decisions on Assigning Narrative Importances of Objects in a Radio Drama Mix

There is an increasing number of consumers of broadcast audio who suffer from a degree of hearing impairment. One of the methods developed for tackling this issue consists of creating customizable object-based audio mixes where users can attenuate parts of the mix using a simple complexity parameter. The method relies on the mixing engineer classifying audio objects in the mix according to their narrative importance. This paper focuses on automating this process. Individual tracks are classified based on their music, speech, or sound effect content. Then the decisions for assigning narrative importance to each segment of a radio drama mix are modelled using mixture distributions. Finally, the learned decisions and resultant mixes are evaluated using the Short Term Objective Intelligibility, with reference to the narrative importance selections made by the original producer. This approach has applications for providing customizable mixes for legacy content, or automatically generated media content where the engineer is not able to intervene

How does radio talk influence young listeners’ perceptions?

Radio broadcasts provide an abundance of readily available data for linguistic analysis. This thesis investigates how the language used in radio broadcasts on BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4 influence young listener perceptions using discourse analysis of radio broadcasts and interview and survey methods. The study analyses the Radio 1 Breakfast show with Greg James and Radio 1’s lunchtime ‘Newsbeat’ with Radio 4’s Today Programme and Radio 4’s World at One. To investigate listener perception, 20 interviews and 32 survey responses were collected and analysed. The analysis focuses on key areas found to be important in broadcast talk, particularly how hard news and soft news engage an audience and how audiences feel addressed. I conducted a discourse analysis which considers personalisation, particularly Fairclough’s (1989) work on Synthetic Personalisation and Landert’s (2014) personalisation of mass media. I also conducted an appraisal analysis, following Martin and White’s (2005) framework, particularly how affect is shown across the four programmes. I also considered informality, analysing markers of informality including but not limited to, contractions, naming and active voice, building on Fairclough’s (2000) ideas of the informalisation of news and how informality is used across the broadcasts (Pearce, 2005). This discourse analysis conducted to compare how Radio 1 and Radio 4 use language to present selected news based programmes. This found that the Radio 1 programmes were generally more personalised using pronouns, particularly ‘you’ and ‘we’, were also more likely to utilise affect and more markers of informality in comparison to Radio 4. Based on reader response methods, the second part of analysis uses interview and survey data from participants to understand their preferences for the programmes analysed. This found that participants showed no significant preference for one programme or station over another and that participants tended to discuss between how informed they perceived a broadcast to be and how formal it was, the more formal being the most informative

Audio Personalisation for Accessible Augmented Reality Narratives

Augmented Reality (AR) is rapidly growing across a diverse range of uses. Along with other Extended Reality (XR) technologies, it has the potential to not only make the world more accessible but to provide new and unique opportunities for impaired users. This will not happen accidentally but requires greater thought and development with impaired users central to decision making. This work explores whether creative and personalisable audio practices can be used to develop mobile-based AR content which is accessible to Visually Impaired (VI) users and includes them in enjoyable, immersive ways. It begins by assessing the accessibility of current AR applications (apps). Despite developments in the use of AR to make the world more accessible, most mobile AR content does not take access needs into account. 37 AR apps were tested against a rubric of features with few found to be accessible. In Study 1, 8 VI participants validated these results by evaluating a subset of these apps. This work then tests the efficacy of accessibility strategies centred upon two concepts. First, using well-designed audio creatively to include and immerse users in meaningful and enjoyable ways. Second, allowing users to personalise experiences to suit their needs. To this end, a bespoke narrative AR app was developed, with accessibility features initially equivalent to those in Study 1. In Study 2, 6 VI participants and 5 content creators displayed positivity towards the strategies and suggested ideas for their implementation. Based on this, the app was updated to include enhanced audio accessibility features. These were evaluated in Study 3 by 12 VI participants and 3 content creators. The results demonstrate positivity towards the strategies’ potential to provide an enjoyable, immersive experience. However, they underline how difficult AR is for VI users, highlighting fundamental challenges which need addressing before such strategies can be applied