Wired for Speech: How Voice Activates and Advances the Human-Computer Relationship

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Amazing Insight

Outstanding, useful information in every chapter.

Wired for Speech: How Voice Activates and Advances the Human-Computer Relationship
Clifford Nass , and Scott Brave
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Speech Processing | Business | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0262140926

Book Description

Interfaces that talk and listen are populating computers, cars, call centers, and even home appliances and toys, but voice interfaces invariably frustrate rather than help. In Wired for Speech, Clifford Nass and Scott Brave reveal how interactive voice technologies can readily and effectively tap into the automatic responses all speech -- whether from human or machine -- evokes. Wired for Speech demonstrates that people are "voice-activated": we respond to voice technologies as we respond to actual people and behave as we would in any social situation. By leveraging this powerful finding, voice interfaces can truly emerge as the next frontier for efficient, user-friendly technology.

Wired for Speech presents new theories and experiments and applies them to critical issues concerning how people interact with technology-based voices. It considers how people respond to a female voice in e-commerce (does stereotyping matter?), how a car's voice can promote safer driving (are "happy" cars better cars?), whether synthetic voices have personality and emotion (is sounding like a person always good?), whether an automated call center should apologize when it cannot understand a spoken request ("To Err is Interface; To Blame, Complex"), and much more. Nass and Brave's deep understanding of both social science and design, drawn from ten years of research at Nass's Stanford laboratory, produces results that often challenge conventional wisdom and common design practices. These insights will help designers and marketers build better interfaces, scientists construct better theories, and everyone gain better understandings of the future of the machines that speak with us.

Customer Reviews:

Amazing Insight.......2007-06-08

This is must reading for anyone in e-commerce marketing. The insight that can be gained from this book is amazing.

Outstanding, useful information in every chapter........2006-06-15

If you're designing voice user interfaces, you should buy this book.

The basic premise of the book is that when a computer has a voice--and it doesn't matter whether the voice is a recorded human or synthesized--people are going to subconsciously interact with the computer as if it is human (bringing their biases about gender, ethnicity, and personality).

I bought this book thinking I would skim it for ideas before writing a proposal. The proposal was focused on improving human-computer interaction for a communications device that uses voice (speech recognition) as the input and the output.

Well, I skimmed the first couple of chapters and realized that I really should read them more closely. I learned a couple of great nuggets on voice gender that influenced what I would include in the proposal.

Then I skimmed the next couple of chapters on personality of voices, realized I should read those more closely, learned a few more nuggets that I knew were going into the proposal.

At that point, I realized I needed to read the whole book closely and fast. Luckily, that was not a problem. The book is an easy read. Every chapter talks about an important design issue for voice user interfaces, describes the decisions that a designer could make, then outlines the research that was done, explains what was learned from the research, and discusses the implications of that research for how you should design your interface.

In short, this book completely changed the proposal, and I think we have a much better chance of winning the business. Furthermore, I have already identified about 5 major things we can do to improve our exsisting products that I did not know about before reading this book.

Wired for Speech, How Voice Activates and Advances the Human-Computer Relationship

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Wired for Speech, How Voice Activates and Advances the Human-Computer Relationship
Clifford and Brave, Scott Nass
Manufacturer: The M.I.T. Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000WISEYE

Wired for Speech: How Voice Activates and Advances the Human-Computer Relationship. [A book review from: Information Processing and Management]

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Wired for Speech: How Voice Activates and Advances the Human-Computer Relationship. [A book review from: Information Processing and Management]
P. Zhang
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Information Processing and Management, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:

Book Description

Hardbound.

Book Description

In this age of collections that is ours, many volumes of collections are published. They contain contributions of several well-known authors, and their aim is to present a selective overview of a relevant field of study.
This book has the same purpose. Its aim is to introduce students, scholars and all those interested in current problems of legal theory and legal philosophy to the work of the leading scholars in this field. The large number of publications, both books and articles, that have been produced over recent decades makes it quite difficult, however, for those who are making their first steps in this domain to find firm guidelines.
The book is new in its genre because of its method. The choice was made not to reprint an example of contributors' earlier basic articles or a part of one of their books. This would only give a partial view of the rich texture of their work. Rather, the authors were asked to make an original synthesis of their own contributions to the field of legal theory and legal philosophy. Brought together in this volume, they constitute a truly author-ised view of their work.
This book is also new in that each essay is complemented with bibliographical information in order to encourage further research on the author's self-selected work. This will help the reader rapidly to become familiar with the whole of the published work of the contributors.

Customer Reviews:

Don't Bother.......2003-07-15

This is poorly written, inadequately researched, indifferently edited, book passing itself off as scholarship. In keeping with its topic--this is sociology lite. Go read something with more nutritious substance.

Book Description

Although the present generation and the previous generation have been lucky to live in the most prosperous half century of human history, the other species that share the planet with humans might disagree over how extraordinary it has been. In typical anthropocentric fashion, this does not faze the average American, who sips lattés while driving SUVs, oblivious to the gathering storm our mismanagement of the ecosphere will bring in the future.

In The Handbook for the Deep Ecologist, author Scott Neuhaus illustrates the components of that storm. Whether the challenge may be the super pathogens created by our misuse and overuse of antibiotics and antiviral agents, the misuse and overconsumption of resources critical for our civilization, or merely the environmental affect of having a population of over six billion people (and growing), will we even recognize the problem?

Evolution through natural selection has instilled amazing tools in humankind. But it has also created certain restrictions that limit our ready understanding of specific concepts. Will these limitations lessen the human race to such a degree that we end up causing our own demise? Only time will tell.

Customer Reviews:

MAGNIFICENT.......2005-09-22

This book was very insightful, Every student should read this as well as adults. Dr Neuhaus has researched this subject & knows it well.

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From the Introduction:

A Great Book

The Other Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: A Parody
Gene Doucette
Manufacturer: Writers Club Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Comic | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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The Best-Case Scenario Handbook: A Parody

The Worst-case Scenario Survival Handbook

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ASIN: 0595261523

Book Description

Have you ever wondered: --How to perform an appendectomy? --How to rob a bank? --How to take a bullet? --How to deliver a baby in a manger? --How to summit Mt. Everest? --How to mend a broken heart?

These and many other emergency situations are addressed here, in The OTHER Worst-case Scenario Survival Handbook.

Customer Reviews:

From the Introduction:.......2004-09-05

"You are about to read the most important book you have ever read. All of the information contained in this volume is critically important for your continued survival on this planet, to say nothing of the other planets, moons, and the many near-Earth asteroids. We have gone through great pains to present to you accurate, detailed information, sometimes going so far as to open a couple of books. In a number of cases we have even risked the lives of total strangers who did things for us on a dare after consuming vast quantities of beer, which we ourselves paid for. We have even pretended we are more than one person when writing this text. This is the sacrifice we have made...

"You should take this handbook everywhere you go, because you simply do not know when it will come in handy. You should also share it with your friends. Buy a copy for everyone you know. In fact, if you buy it for five friends tonight, something good will happen to you. If you do not, you will be beset upon by untold misfortune. Bob Unger from Lebanon, Maine, neglected to buy copies for any of his friends, and the next day he was eaten by wolves.

"Don't take that chance!"

--Gene Doucette

A Great Book.......2003-08-13

I really reccomend this book. The OTHER Worst-Case Scenario Handbook will make you laugh out loud. It's especially good for bathroom reading, for two reasons: 1- It has short sections, that are easy to read if you only have a couple of minutes at a time. 2- It's so funny, you'll soil yourself.

Book Description

THE BATTLE OF LITTLE ROUND TOP AS IT HAS NEVER BEFORE SEEN-THROUGH THE EYES OF THE SOLDIERS WHO FOUGHT THERE

"Here is the real story of the epic fight for Little Round Top, shorn of the mythology long obscuring this pivotal Gettysburg moment. A vivid and eloquent book." —Stephen W. Sears, author of Gettysburg

"Little Round Top has become iconic in Civil War literature and American memory. In the emotional recollection of our great war, if there was one speck on the landscape that decided a battle and the future of a nation, then surely this was it. The story of the July 2, 1863 struggle for that hill outside Gettysburg goes deeper into our consciousness than that, however. The men who fought for it then and there believed it to be decisive, and that is why they died for it. Glenn W. LaFantasie's Twilight at Little Round Top addresses that epic struggle, how those warriors felt then and later, and their physical and emotional attachment to a piece of ground that linked them forever with their nation's fate. This is military and social history at its finest." —W.C. Davis, author of Lincoln's Men and An Honorable Defeat

"Few military episodes of the Civil War have attracted as much attention as the struggle for Little Round Top on the second day of Gettysburg. This judicious and engaging book navigates confidently through a welter of contradictory testimony to present a splendid account of the action. It also places events on Little Round Top, which often are exaggerated, within the broader sweep of the battle. All readers interested in the battle of Gettysburg will read this book with enjoyment and profit." —Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Confederate War

"In his beautifully written narrative, Glenn LaFantasie tells the story of the battle for Little Round Top from the perspective of the soldiers who fought and died in July 1863. Using well-chosen quotes from a wide variety of battle participants, TWILIGHT puts the reader in the midst of the fight—firing from behind boulders with members of the 4th Alabama, running up the hillside into battle with the men of the 140th New York, and watching in horror as far too many men die. This book offers an elegy to the courage of those men, a meditation on the meaning of war, and a cautionary tale about the sacrifices nations ask of their soldiers and the causes for which those sacrifices are needed." —Amy Kinsel, Winnrer of the 1993 Allan Nevins Prize for From These Honored Dead: Gettysburg in American Culture

Customer Reviews:

When the author sticks to the battlefield narrative, this is a 5 star book..........2007-03-22

This is one of the best and most well written accounts on the battle of Little Round Top to date, that is, when the author's narrative sticks to the events of the battlefield and the personal accounts of soldier's battlefield experiences, instead of interjecting what seems to be his own feelings regarding the issues surrounding what brought about the Civil War.

He beats to death the slavery angle like a dead horse, over and over again. That's why I have to give it 3 stars for some of the chapters and 5 stars for others. The author has a habit of continually overemphasizing the evilness of slavery and how bad and contradictory the Confederate soldier was to the point where at times I felt like screaming "ENOUGH ALREADY!"

How annoying it was...and I was born and raised in the North! In Pennsylvania!

While it's important to note that slavery did become one of the issues, there are other works done on Southern history that contribute more to the whole story such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to the South by Clint Johnson, Charles Adam's "In the Course of Human Events" or any of James Ronald Kennedy's works. To the unlearned Civil War reader some of the author's misleading statements and personal opinions can be taken for fact.

Old Honest Abe wasn't all that honest and Robert E. Lee wasn't the Antichrist...Do your research people!

What's refreshing about this book is that it doesn't overemphasize the 20th Maine & Joshua Chamberlain, thankfully. Enough of them already too!
We learn there were others who also contributed greatly, some with their lives,to this great Union victory in July of 1863.

Overall, this is well researched and well written account of the battle of Little Round Top.

Worth Every Page.......2007-01-30

I can't contribute as many words as the other reviewers have, but I can tell you that after reading many books about Gettysburg and the Civil War, this book was a real treat. The author puts forth some great theories about what happened to these men on July 2 and what motivated them to make the ultimate sacrifice. Even if you have read "them all", this one will captivate you. I went back to Gettysburg last Saturday just to see Little Round Top again after reading this book. It made the trip even more worthwhile than any of my other visits. You won't be sorry.

The Soldier's View with Reflections on the War and the Battle .......2006-08-31

LaFantasie writes a compact book that concentrates on the attack and defense of Little Round top providing a soldier's view of the most engaging fight at Gettysburg through their letters and post war comments. Of course, he includes reflections by the notable officers involved particularly Colonel Oates of the 15th Alabama and Chamberlain of the 20th Maine. Thus, the personal histories offer a realistic feel for this deadly battle that ensued on the most dramatic landscape at Gettysburg. You have to agree with the author that virtually everyone that went into this battle was without a doubt a brave man. An example of the realism is the comments of a member of the 15th Alabama who advances to attack the forces on Little Round Top but becomes pinned down behind a large boulder due to the union fusillade of bullets. His options are severely limited; he can only move forward with his seven colleagues when the fire slackens or they must find an opportunity to get away. There are countless reference of charges of Little Round Top by the confederates but due to the noise of battle and limited line of sight, it seems that there is no definitive clear count of attacks on Little Round Top. After the initial push, additional attacks seem to be made by companies and platoons. On the union side, dramatic decisions are made to defend Little Round Top, pushing cannon up by hand more to make psychological noise due to the inability to depress barrels low enough to strike the attacking enemy while Vincent's line keeps a horrific, effective and continuous fire that has great effect. There is a fairly detailed description of the well-known confrontation between the 15th Alabama and the 20th Maine as Chamberlain refuses his left to stem a desperate flanking attack by the 15th. Through these personal perspectives, you see that many confederates were frustrated with their leadership in making an exhaustive attack across broken ground while a junior officer later questions the depth of Chamberlain's role that although heroic may have stepped beyond allowable embellishment. The latter part of the book consists of the participants view of the third day from their perspective but primarily offers social commentary on the significance of the battle and in particular the depth of loss on both sides. The loss of Oates' brother is particularly poignant as he, like General Garnett in Pickett's (Longstreet's) Charge, was truly too ill to participate in the attack but loses his life making the attempt. Pfanz's "Gettysburg: The Second Day" provides more overall detail as part of his great trilogy but LaFantasie provides a perspective of the battle from the soldier's view and after reading again about this unique and boulder filled rough ground, I plan to return to Gettysburg once again to walk through Devil's Den and stand next to Warren' s statue on Little Round Top and this time try to find where Vincent fell and the location of the refused left of the 20th Maine.

Little Round Top.......2006-04-21

The Battle of Little Round Top and the courage of Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine have exercised a hold on many Americans understanding of the battle of Gettysburg. Chamberlain's role became viewed as larger-than-life following Michael Scharra's novel, "The Killer Angels" and its subsequent television and movie adaptations. A degree of reaction has set in, as some historians question the significance of Little Round Top to the outcome of Gettysburg and the legendary status accorded to Chamberlain.

Glenn Lafantasie's "Twilight at Little Round Top" presents an account of this celebrated battle that manages to be both heroic and gripping as well as sober and balanced. LaFantasie is a former historian at the State Department who has written extensively on the Civil War. He has read and thought about the extensive literature on Little Round Top to produce a reflective study.

The most notable aspect of LaFantasie's study is the variety of perspectives he conveys. At times, LaFantasie speaks in the voice of various soldiers who participated in the battle, both Union and Confederate. We learn about historically obscure infantrymen and their motivations, their lives before the War and thereafter. We also see a great deal of the officers who became famous on Little Round Top. LaFantasie gives the reader a great deal of Chamberlain, but he shows the reader the many other heroes as well. Before the recent focus on Chamberlain, Briagadier General Gouverneur Warren was regarded as the "Savior of Little Round Top", and LaFantasie gives him a great deal of sympathetic attention. Strong Vincent, Paddy O'Rourke, and Stephen Weed, all of whom repulsed assaults on Little Round Top at least as forceful as the assaults Chamberlain faced, are given the attention they deserve. Unlike Chamberlain, these heroes died on Little Round Top. LaFantasie also gives the reader a thorough, human portrait of Chamberlain's assailant, Colonel William Oates who led his Alabama troops in assaults against the far left of the Union line.

LaFantasie also includes a great deal of broad meditiation on the meaning of the battle. He has long sections discussing the nature of freedom and liberty, as they were understood by North and South. He also has a long chapter on suffering and on human death, resulting from the struggle over the small hill. LaFantasie argues that Americans we compelled to change their understanding of death when faced with the carnage of the Civil War. LaFantasie also emphasizes the heroism of the soldiers in the fight for Little Round Top and finds that their actions outweigh those of their famous commanders. He concludes that the soldiers on both sides, who charged and defended the hill with valor and with virtually superhuman endurance, were the true heroes of the battle.

LaFantasie does not overemphasize the role of Little Round Top and the eventual outcome at the battle of Gettysburg, but neither does he minimize it, as do some recent writers. He shows an excellent grasp of the battle as a whole by placing events at Little Round Top in the context of the events of the first day and in the context of the Confederate leadership's patchwork, changing, and uncoordianted plans for July 2. He points out that the second day of the battle, rather than the third with Pickett's charge, was the true high water mark of the Confederacy. He points out how the Union's ability to hold Little Round Top restricted Lee's options for the third day of the battle -- it foreclosed his desired attack on the Union left and led him to what proved to be his disastrous assault on the Union center followed by the retreat from Gettysburg.

Readers with an interest and some background in the battle of Gettysburg will enjoy LaFantasie's study of Little Round Top.

DEATH at DUSK on a GLOOMY SLOPE.......2005-09-24

The author, Glenn L. LaFantasie, in the PREFACE notes "In the end, the Union triumph on Little Round Top set the stage for the battle that was to be fought on the following day, July 3, because Federal possession of the hill meant that General Robert E. Lee's options for further attacks against the defensive line of the Army of the Potomac would be by necessity severely limited." Unlike many works on the fight for Little Round Top, the text does not overemphasize the strategy differences between Lee and Longstreet, but rather gives a clear account of one of the bloodiest five hours of combat during the Civil War.

As to the question why Gettysburg; the text notes that as Lee saw things, he had two choices in the late spring of 1863: either retire on Richmond and stand a siege which ultimately he could not win or carry the war into Pennsylvania with a chance for victory. The book notes several critical flaws in the planned attack of July 2nd: fatally flawed Confederate reconnaissance of the Union left leading Lee to assume that no Federals occupied the ground to be attacked; and patchwork planning by Lee with the attendant bickering between Lee and Longstreet. A succinct account is given of the fighting leading up to the battle for Little Round Top. Union errors were made as well as Confederate mistakes. Most amazing was Union General Daniel Sickles unauthorized move to the Peach Orchard thereby creating a gap in the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. The result could have been disastrous had not Confederate General Longstreet approached the Peach Orchard. The author writes "So by pure luck, and through the fortitude of the troops in blue would give their blood to hold back Longstreet's onslaught that afternoon, Sickles could later claim to be the hero of the day, the savior of the Union." For this Sickles was later awarded the Medal of Honor which many Union Generals condemned as Sickles' action was deemed insubordinate, irresponsible, and murderous in its effect. The text provides a compact account of the fighting preceding Little Round Top in an area later referred to as "The Valley of Death."

LaFantasie states "Technical improvements in weapons ....had far surpassed tactics, making this Civil War a modern war, and a particularly bloody and deadly one..." At twilight, over a five hour period, numerous assaults were made to dislodge the Federals from the summit of Little Round Top. Union Captain Judson later described the combat "It was a death grapple in which assailant and assailed seemed resolved to win or fall in the struggle. The enemy [Confederates] had everything to gain if they carried the position; everything to lose if they failed." The author gives an excellent account of this deadly combat that finally ended at deep dusk when Colonel Chamberlain and the 20th Maine's bayonet charge forced the Confederates off the hill. The casualties for both sides was staggering; the Confederates suffered 35 percent casualties in the fight while the price paid by the Army of the Potomac for defending Little Round Top was very high. The narrative of Little Round Top concludes with an account of the misery the troops of both armies suffered during the night following the battle. A very short account of the fighting on July 3rd is given, where Lee's assault on the center of Meade's line failed which was followed by Lee's retreat back to Virginia.

The book gives some interesting companion material on Civil War combat. Letters of condolences usually stated the "...soldier had died a good death that is, a death with specific purpose, a death that at once revealed the religious faith, the innate goodness, the inspiring last words, and the brimming patriotism of the fallen." Regarding death the author writes "Soldiers became resigned to the fact that God would either protect them or single them out for sacrifice....Soldiers found comfort in maintaining their antebellum ideas of death and their faith in a Christian God." The book concludes with an EPILOGUE that gives brief accounts of a few of the survivors of Little Round Top. Most interesting is that Union General Gouverneur Warren was known as "The Savior of Little Round Top" until the rise in popularity (from TV, movies, a book) of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain in the 1990s.

Some readers may take issue with statements in the EPILOGUE about Robert E. Lee. However, overall this is a well researched, well written account of what arguably was the most critical combat of the Civil War battle at Gettysburg.

Book Description

Previous editions of this book have helped over 100,000 students and professionals write effective proposals for dissertations and grants. Covering all aspects of the proposal process, from the most basic questions about form and style to the task of seeking funding, Proposals That Work offers clear advice backed up with excellent examples. In the new edition, the authors have integrated a discussion of the effects of new technologies and the Internet on the proposal process with URLs listed where appropriate. In addition, there is a new chapter on funding for student research and a completely written chapter on qualitative research. As always, the authors have included a number of specimen proposals, two that are completely new to this edition, to help shed light on the important issues surrounding the writing of proposals.

Clear, straightforward, and reader-friendly, Proposals That Work is a must-own for anyone considering writing a proposal for a thesis, a dissertation, or a grant.

Customer Reviews:

The Only Proposal Guide You Need.......2002-12-30

As any graduate student will tell you acceptance onto a Ph.D program is largely based on submitting a successful proposal. Thereafter, as long as the researcher adheres to the proposal, graduation is virtually guaranteed. I am a Ph.D student who used the book to construct my proposal, which was summarily accepted by the research committee with minor changes. This appears to be contrary to what many Ph.D hopefuls experience. The book is expensive however I would highly recommend it. The proposal hurdle is well worth overcoming professionally.

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Parks & Recreation, published by National Recreation and Park Association on March 1, 2005. The length of the article is 688 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Park protector: the seventh National Park Service director George Hartzog managed to complete most of his goals before getting fired by President Nixon.
Publication: Parks & Recreation (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2005
Publisher: National Recreation and Park Association
Volume: 40 Issue: 3 Page: 200(1)

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