title: Expressive visual text-to-speech as an assistive technology for individuals with autism spectrum conditions.
abstract: Adults with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) experience marked difficulties in recognising the emotions of others and responding appropriately. The clinical characteristics of ASC mean that face to face or group interventions may not be appropriate for this clinical group. This article explores the potential of a new interactive technology, converting text to emotionally expressive speech, to improve emotion processing ability and attention to faces in adults with ASC. We demonstrate a method for generating a near-videorealistic avatar (XpressiveTalk), which can produce a video of a face uttering inputted text, in a large variety of emotional tones. We then demonstrate that general population adults can correctly recognize the emotions portrayed by XpressiveTalk. Adults with ASC are significantly less accurate than controls, but still above chance levels for inferring emotions from XpressiveTalk. Both groups are significantly more accurate when inferring sad emotions from XpressiveTalk compared to the original actress, and rate these expressions as significantly more preferred and realistic. The potential applications for XpressiveTalk as an assistive technology for adults with ASC is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Psychology, Behaviour and Achievement, Coventry University, Coventry CV1 5FB, UK; Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Douglas House, 18B Trumpington Road, Cambridge CB2 8AH, UK.
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Cassidy
authors.affiliation: Toshiba Research Europe Ltd., 208 Science Park, Cambridge CB4 0GZ, UK.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Stenger
authors.affiliation: Maastricht University, Faculty of Psychology, Maastricht 6200 MD, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Van Dongen
authors.affiliation: Toshiba Research Europe Ltd., 208 Science Park, Cambridge CB4 0GZ, UK.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yanagisawa
authors.affiliation: Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Douglas House, 18B Trumpington Road, Cambridge CB2 8AH, UK; Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Foundation NHS Trust, CLASS Clinic, UK.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.affiliation: Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Douglas House, 18B Trumpington Road, Cambridge CB2 8AH, UK; Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Foundation NHS Trust, CLASS Clinic, UK.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Wan
authors.affiliation: Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Douglas House, 18B Trumpington Road, Cambridge CB2 8AH, UK; Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Foundation NHS Trust, CLASS Clinic, UK.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Baron-Cohen
authors.affiliation: Toshiba Research Europe Ltd., 208 Science Park, Cambridge CB4 0GZ, UK; Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cipolla
keywords: Assistive technology; Autism spectrum conditions; Emotion recognition; Intervention; Social cognition