This tool (patent-pending) monitors in real-time the pace and complexity of a speech and gently asks the speaker to slow down if necessary. It is designed to support simultaneous interpreters in those cases when a speaker is simply going too fast for the interpreter to deliver an accurate and fluent translation. It can also contribute to better intelligibility of the original speech and can therefore be used in monolingual contexts.
Our algorithm (patent-pending) applies several metrics in order to measure the grade of "interpretability" of a speech while it is unfolding. Among others, it measures the mere pace of the talk in words or syllables, the lexical density, and its syntactic complexity. This is performed in a dynamic and progressive way. We have developed several measures that use the metrics singularly or by triangulating them in a multidimensional 'interpretability' threshold. Reference values are oriented to the thresholds reported in the literature and fined-tuned through empirical tests. In order to create a non-intrusive signaling system for the speaker, special calibration and stabilization mechanisms have been implemented. The tool supports several languages. The UI of the video is only for demonstration purposes.
The tool is a patent-pending innovation (SpeedoMeter: Fantinuoli&KUDO).
Declaration of financial support: The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this project.