<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <style type="text/css" style="display:none;"></style> </head> <body dir="ltr"> <div id="divtagdefaultwrapper" style="font-size:12pt;color:#000000;font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif;" dir="ltr"> <p><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 12pt;">Dear colleagues,</span><br> </p> <div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> <div> <div id="divtagdefaultwrapper" dir="ltr" style="font-size:12pt; color:#000000; font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif"> <div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <div> <div id="divtagdefaultwrapper" dir="ltr" style="font-size:12pt; color:#000000; font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif"> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> A reminder that the Early-bird deadline is fast approaching<br> <br> We invite you to submit to our workshop: <b style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,EmojiFont,"Apple Color Emoji","Segoe UI Emoji",NotoColorEmoji,"Segoe UI Symbol","Android Emoji",EmojiSymbols">RSS 2024 Workshop on Embodied Voices (WEV)<br> <br> </b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> Website: <a href="https://rosielab.github.io/wev/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="x_x_OWAAutoLink" id="LPlnk823683">https://rosielab.github.io/wev/</a></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> Workshop: Full day, July 15th 2024</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> Location: Hybrid, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands and online</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> Manuscript submission site: <a href="https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/wev2024/Submission/Index" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="x_x_OWAAutoLink" id="LPlnk107916">https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/wev2024/Submission/Index</a></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <b>Important Dates</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> - Early-bird submission deadline: <b>April 24th, 2024</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> - Early-bird notification of acceptance: <b>May 22nd, 2024</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> - General submission deadline: <b>May 15th, 2024</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> - General notification of acceptance: <b>June 15th, 2024</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> - Camera-ready deadline:<b> July 10th, 2024</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> All deadlines are at 23:59 AOE.</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <b>Overview and Aim</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <b><br> </b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> Communication between humans is driven by language and voice. As such, to improve interaction between humans and robots we must improve robot voices. Research in generative voices (Glow-TTS, VITS, Matcha-TTS) has been advancing at an unprecedented rate. Yet, even though these models exist, they have seen little deployment in robotics, with roboticists often opting for out-of-the-box voices from large companies, or voices custom designed to a single robot. Appropriateness of a robot’s voice requires considering a wide range of contextual factors including their appearance, task, location, the culture and abilities of the people they interact with. At the same time, the field of HRI is concerned with designing robots to interact with humans, often by studying human behavior to replicate appropriate behaviour in robots. <b>Yet, simply applying human-like voices to a robot can result in uncanniness and may actually reduce human comfort.</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> In this workshop, we aim to bring together and nourish a multidisciplinary community of those working in speech synthesis and their applications in interaction. By doing so we hope to bridge the disconnect between state-of-the-art generative models for voice and the in the wild implementation in embodied characters, whether it be robots, virtual agents or beyond. <b>Authors will present lightning talks of 5 mins each, followed by Q&A with posters shared on our website</b>.</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <b>Topics</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <b><br> </b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> We aim to bring together robot designers, interaction scholars and those working in speech and sound synthesis. We challenge those working in speech synthesis and sound generation to consider the challenges of working within the constraints of embodiment and context, and those designing robots to consider the benefits of embedding state-of-the-art generative models.</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> We are seeking topics including, but not limited to, the following:</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <b>Robotic Sound Design</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Assessment and validation of appropriateness of embodied sounds</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -In the wild deployment of embodied sounds</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Uncanny Valley voice</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <b>Contextual Sound Synthesis</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Contextual speech synthesis</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Contextual non-speech sounds</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Adaptive sound generation</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Controllable TTS</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <b>Human Studies of Vocal Adaption</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Linguistic and psychological studies of vocal adaptation in context</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <b>Ethics in Sound Design</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Voice vs. sound</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Perception difficulties and accessibility</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Reinforcement of bias (gender, accents, jobs)</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <b>Embodied Interaction</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Robotic conversation systems</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Acoustic processing</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Speech processing</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <b>Submission Guidelines</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> We invite papers of 2-4 pages (excluding references)</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> Please follow the style and submission guidelines for RSS, reviews will be double-blind so all submissions must be anonymized</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> RSS guidelines: <a href="https://roboticsconference.org/information/authorinfo/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="x_x_OWAAutoLink" id="LPlnk38891">https://roboticsconference.org/information/authorinfo/</a></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> Overleaf template: <a href="https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/robotics-science-and-systems-conference/yjqvxxpznptx" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="x_x_OWAAutoLink" id="LPlnk594926">https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/robotics-science-and-systems-conference/yjqvxxpznptx</a></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <b>Organizers</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <span style="font-size:12pt"><br> </span></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <span style="font-size:12pt"> -Paige Tuttösí, Simon Fraser University & FEMTO-ST</span><br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Charlotte Stinkeste, KTH Royal Institute of Technology</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Siyang Wang, KTH Royal Institute of Technology</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Emma Hughson, Cambridge Consultants</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Jūra Miniota, KTH Royal Institute of Technology</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Minja Axelsson, University of Cambridge</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Paul Maublanc, Aarhus University</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Chuxuan Zhang, Simon Fraser University</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Marine Chamoux, Aldebaran</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Lawrence Kim, Simon Fraser University</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> -Angelica Lim, Simon Fraser University</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <b>Contact</b></div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> All questions about submissions should be emailed to wev [AT] rosielab.ca<br> <br> Cheers, and looking forward to seeing you in Delft!</div> <div style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; font-size:16px"> <br> Paige <span style="font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,EmojiFont,"Apple Color Emoji","Segoe UI Emoji",NotoColorEmoji,"Segoe UI Symbol","Android Emoji",EmojiSymbols">Tuttösí</span></div> <p></p> <div id="Signature"> <div id="divtagdefaultwrapper" dir="ltr" style="font-size:12pt; color:rgb(0,0,0); font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif,EmojiFont,"Apple Color Emoji","Segoe UI Emoji",NotoColorEmoji,"Segoe UI Symbol","Android Emoji",EmojiSymbols"> <div style="font-size:16px; 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