Why don't researchers publish audio versions of their articles?

Researchers love listening to talks. In some fields (such as computer science), the top conferences are as prestigious as the top journals. I haven't checked the psychology literature, but I am guessing that listening is more natural than reading - even for professors. I think it's easier to quickly understand a paper if you listen to it.

In the past few years, many researchers have started putting PDFs of their publications on their websites. But if hearing is more natural, why don't we publish audio files of paper presentations as well? (This quantum computing conference publishes MP3s as well as PDFs, but why hasn't everyone else caught on?) In fact, if we assume for a moment that the conference talk is the optimal way to learn a new idea, then why don't presentation programs such as PowerPoint, Latex and web browsers include markup for synchronization with audio play?

Other ideas/benefits:

• You could listen to talks while driving, on a bus or in the shower.
• You could markup PDFs of actual papers (as opposed to conference slides) with the relevant audio portions. This would allow somebody reading a PDF to hear the relevant part of the presentation, and also allow somebody listening to the talk to quickly find the relevant part of the paper (in case they want extra details).
• Unlike a conference talk, you would be able to rewind, replay and fast-forward. Unfortunately, you can't (quickly) ask questions.

Back to my ideas page