EYE TRACKING STUDY OF VISUAL ATTENTION DURING VISUAL-AUDITORY DIAGNOSIS OF SPEECH NON-FLUENCIES

Diagnosing speech non-fluencies is usually conducted by the auditory method. In order to improve the detection efficiency of speech disturbances a speech therapist may also use the visual channel - a source of additional information helpful in more accurate analysis of recordings presenting speech of stuttering patients. By means of a specially-tailored computer system for the logopaedic diagnosis and therapy it is possible simultaneously to listen to and to observe the recorded utterances showing speech disturbances of individual participants of the therapy. The visual analysis is usually carried out on the basis of the speech signal spectrum (spectrogram). The purpose of the study presented in the paper was to verify the effectiveness of the visual method in the visual-auditory diagnosing of speech non-fluencies. The evaluation of the usefulness of the method was based on the measurement of visual attention of a speech therapist. An eyetracker was used in order to monitor visual attention when the specialist analysed recordings and visual representation of the utterances of stuttering patients. The study showed the degree to which the speech therapist used the visual channel. Furthermore, the fixations on various registered speech non-fluencies as well as fixations on particular non-fluency types were also analysed. In the article the presented case study used eyetracking to evaluate the degree of usefulness of the visual channel during visual-auditory diagnosing of stuttering.