Acoustical Implications of Voice Technology in the Open-Plan Office

Abstract

Project ECIOV was designed to answer some of the acoustical environmental issues presented by the growing number of people implementing voice input/output with computers. Preliminary testing was carried out with the Votan VPC2150 voice recognition board to determine the voice level required for 100% recognition and the effects of background noise on the recognition rate. It was observed that the Shure head-worn microphone, typically recommended by Votan and other manufacturers of voice recognition systems, was effective in minimizing the effects of background noise. The recognition rate was dependent primarily on speaker level and consistency.