Potential speech features for cognitive load measurement

Intelligent user interfaces with an awareness of a user's experienced level of cognitive load have the potential to change the way output strategies are implemented and executed. However, current methods of measuring cognitive load are intrusive and unsuitable in real-time scenarios. Certain speech features have been shown to change under high levels of load. We present a dual-task speech based user study in which we explore three speech features: pause length, pause frequency and latency to response. These features are evaluated for their diagnostic capacity. Pause length and latency to response are shown to be useful indicators of high load versus low load speech.