Using synthetic speech for remote access to information

The availability of unlimited text-to-speech synthesis systems provides the potential for remote access to databases over existing telephone systems. This paper describes some of the intelligibility and user interface problems associated with such applications and reports work aimed at understanding and solving these problems. In particular, it describes an approach to intelligibility problems based on the understanding and manipulation of listeners’ adaptation to synthetic speech, and user interface work examining use of a simulated travel information system.