Speaking Behavior

In accessibility and HCI research, the observable communicative behaviors a speaker exhibits during conversation — including speech rate, voice intensity (loudness), articulation clarity (including hyperarticulation or over-enunciation), eye contact, gesturing, and pausing. Speaking behavior affects both the accuracy of Automatic Speech Recognition systems and the comprehension of lipreaders and captioning users. Research shows hearing speakers tend to modify these behaviors when speaking to Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing people or when speaking into ASR tools, sometimes in ways that help recognition accuracy but feel patronizing or unnatural to the DHH conversation partner.