Audible Hyperlinks in Synthetic Speech: Effects of Speech and Non-speech Cues on Hyperlink Perception & Sentence Comprehension

This paper describes two empirical experiments investigating the perception of embedded audible hyperlinks, designed using speech and non-speech cues, and their effect on the comprehension of synthetic speech. Results from the first experiment showed high accuracy levels of hyperlink perception and differences in comprehension performance between sentences with hyperlinks and sentences without hyperlinks. Results from the second experiment also showed high accuracy levels of hyperlink perception as well as differences in comprehension performance between two hyperlink designs using different configurations of speech and non-speech cues. The results demonstrate that speech and non-speech cues may be effective in the design of audible hyperlinks however their presence within synthetic sentences may reduce overall comprehensibility. Results also demonstrate that different configurations of speech and non-speech cues used to represent audible hyperlinks effect comprehension processes.