Benjamin Weiss – författare

Postcards of a nation embracing a new democratic technology The ubiquity of photography and social media today makes it hard to imagine a time when it was not possible for ordinary people to take their own pictures and send them with short messages over long distances. But it was revolutionary when the Eastman Kodak Company, in 1903, unveiled a new postcard camera that produced a postcard-size negative that could print directly onto a blank card. Suddenly almost anyone, amateurs and entrepreneurial photographers alike, could take a picture—of neighbors at home and at work, local celebrations, newsworthy disasters, sightseeing trips—and turn it into a postcard.This book captures this moment in the history of communications—from around 1900 to 1930—through a generous selection of what came to be known as “real photo postcards” from the extensive Leonard A. Lauder Postcard Archive. As the formality of earlier photography falls away, these postcards remind us that the past was occupied by people with distinct and individual stories, dramatic, humorous, puzzling and surprising.

The book discusses subjective ratings of quality and preference of unknown voices and dialog partners – their likability, for example. Human natural and artificial voices are studied in passive listening and interactive scenarios. In this book, the background, state of research, and contributions to the assessment and prediction of talker quality that is constituted in voice perception and in dialog are presented. Starting from theories and empirical findings from human interaction, major results and approaches are transferred to the domain of human-computer interaction (HCI). The main objective of this book is to contribute to the evaluation of spoken interaction in humans and between humans and computers, and in particular to the quality subsequently attributed to the speaking system or person based on the listening and interactive experience.Provides a comprehensive overview of research in evaluation of speakers and dialog partners;Presents recent results on the relevance of a first passive and interactive impression;Includes human and HCI evaluation results from a communicative perspective.

The book discusses subjective ratings of quality and preference of unknown voices and dialog partners – their likability, for example. Human natural and artificial voices are studied in passive listening and interactive scenarios. In this book, the background, state of research, and contributions to the assessment and prediction of talker quality that is constituted in voice perception and in dialog are presented. Starting from theories and empirical findings from human interaction, major results and approaches are transferred to the domain of human-computer interaction (HCI). The main objective of this book is to contribute to the evaluation of spoken interaction in humans and between humans and computers, and in particular to the quality subsequently attributed to the speaking system or person based on the listening and interactive experience.

Provides a comprehensive overview of research in evaluation of speakers and dialog partners;Presents recent results on the relevance of a first passive and interactive impression;Includes human and HCI evaluation results from a communicative perspective.

The book discusses subjective ratings of quality and preference of unknown voices and dialog partners – their likability, for example. Human natural and artificial voices are studied in passive listening and interactive scenarios. In this book, the background, state of research, and contributions to the assessment and prediction of talker quality that is constituted in voice perception and in dialog are presented. Starting from theories and empirical findings from human interaction, major results and approaches are transferred to the domain of human-computer interaction (HCI). The main objective of this book is to contribute to the evaluation of spoken interaction in humans and between humans and computers, and in particular to the quality subsequently attributed to the speaking system or person based on the listening and interactive experience.Provides a comprehensive overview of research in evaluation of speakers and dialog partners;Presents recent results on the relevance of a first passive and interactive impression;Includes human and HCI evaluation results from a communicative perspective.

This book addresses various aspects of acoustic–phonetic analysis, including voice quality and fundamental frequency, and the effects of speech fluency and non-native accents, by examining read speech, public speech, and conversations.

This book addresses various aspects of acoustic–phonetic analysis, including voice quality and fundamental frequency, and the effects of speech fluency and non-native accents, by examining read speech, public speech, and conversations. Voice is a sexually dimorphic trait that can convey important biological and social information about the speaker, and empirical findings suggest that voice characteristics and preferences play an important role in both intra- and intersexual selection, such as competition and mating, and social evaluation. Discussing evaluation criteria like physical attractiveness, pleasantness, likability, and even persuasiveness and charisma, the book bridges the gap between social and biological views on voice attractiveness. It presents conceptual, methodological and empirical work applying methods such as passive listening tests, psychoacoustic rating experiments, and crowd-sourced and interactive scenarios and highlights the diversity not only of the methods usedwhen studying voice attractiveness, but also of the domains investigated, such as politicians’ speech, experimental speed dating, speech synthesis, vocal pathology, and voice preferences in human interactions as well as in human–computer and human–robot interactions. By doing so, it identifies widespread and complementary approaches and establishes common ground for further research.

This book addresses various aspects of acoustic–phonetic analysis, including voice quality and fundamental frequency, and the effects of speech fluency and non-native accents, by examining read speech, public speech, and conversations.

The first comprehensive exploration of postcards used as propaganda on all sides of the major military and political conflicts of the twentieth century, including World Wars I and II A Russian Socialist worker raises the red flag. Adoring crowds greet Hitler and Mussolini. Uncle Sam orders Americans to enlist. These images and many more circulated by the millions on postcards intended to change minds and inspire actions around the time of the two World Wars. Whether produced by government propaganda bureaus, opportunistic publishers, aid organizations, or resistance movements, postcards conveyed their messages with striking graphics, pithy slogans, and biting caricatures – and in a uniquely personal format. The more than 350 cards reproduced in full colour in this book advocate for political causes and celebrate war efforts on all sides of the major conflicts of the first half of the twentieth century. The accompanying text shows how a ubiquitous form of communication served increasingly sophisticated campaigns in an age of propaganda, and highlights the postcards collected here as both priceless historical documents and masterworks of graphic design.