# Effects of Added Emphasis and Pause in Audio Delivery of Health Information

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.19119 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.19119/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 2 of its 19 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 Apr 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [A Deep Learning based No-reference Quality Assessment Model for UGC Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.14047/) (2022)
- [Semantic Structural Evaluation for Text Simplification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.05022/) (2018)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Automated Feedback Loops to Protect Text Simplification with Generative AI from Information Loss](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.16172/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Health literacy is crucial to supporting good health and is a major national goal. Audio delivery of information is becoming more popular for informing oneself. In this study, we evaluate the effect of audio enhancements in the form of information emphasis and pauses with health texts of varying difficulty and we measure health information comprehension and retention. We produced audio snippets from difficult and easy text and conducted the study on Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT). Our findings suggest that emphasis matters for both information comprehension and retention. When there is no added pause, emphasizing significant information can lower the perceived difficulty for difficult and easy texts. Comprehension is higher (54%) with correctly placed emphasis for the difficult texts compared to not adding emphasis (50%). Adding a pause lowers perceived difficulty and can improve retention but adversely affects information comprehension.