Generation and Evaluation of User Tailored Responses in Multimodal Dialogue

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Generation and Evaluation of User Tailored Responses in Multimodal Dialogue
Language: English
Authors: Walker, M. A., Whittaker, S. J., Stent, A.
Source: Cognitive Science. Sep-Oct 2004 28(5):811-840.
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Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 30
Publication Date: 2004
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Descriptors: Dialogs (Language), Language Usage, Models, Attribution Theory, Hypothesis Testing, Interpersonal Communication, Listening Comprehension, Cognitive Processes
DOI: 10.1016/j.cogsci.2004.06.002
ISSN: 0364-0213
Abstract: When people engage in conversation, they tailor their utterances to their conversational partners, whether these partners are other humans or computational systems. This tailoring, or adaptation to the partner takes place in all facets of human language use, and is based on a "mental model" or a "user model" of the conversational partner. Such adaptation has been shown to improve listeners' comprehension, their satisfaction with an interactive system, the efficiency with which they execute conversational tasks, and the likelihood of achieving higher level goals such as changing the listener's beliefs and attitudes. We focus on one aspect of adaptation, namely the tailoring of the content of dialogue system utterances for the higher level processes of persuasion, argumentation and advice-giving. Our hypothesis is that algorithms that adapt content for these processes, according to a user model, will improve the usability, efficiency, and effectiveness of dialogue systems. We describe a multimodal dialogue system and algorithms for adaptive content selection based on multi-attribute decision theory. We demonstrate experimentally the improved efficacy of system responses through the use of user models to both tailor the content of system utterances and to manipulate their conciseness.
Abstractor: Author
Entry Date: 2006
Accession Number: EJ730969
Database: ERIC
Description
Abstract:When people engage in conversation, they tailor their utterances to their conversational partners, whether these partners are other humans or computational systems. This tailoring, or adaptation to the partner takes place in all facets of human language use, and is based on a "mental model" or a "user model" of the conversational partner. Such adaptation has been shown to improve listeners' comprehension, their satisfaction with an interactive system, the efficiency with which they execute conversational tasks, and the likelihood of achieving higher level goals such as changing the listener's beliefs and attitudes. We focus on one aspect of adaptation, namely the tailoring of the content of dialogue system utterances for the higher level processes of persuasion, argumentation and advice-giving. Our hypothesis is that algorithms that adapt content for these processes, according to a user model, will improve the usability, efficiency, and effectiveness of dialogue systems. We describe a multimodal dialogue system and algorithms for adaptive content selection based on multi-attribute decision theory. We demonstrate experimentally the improved efficacy of system responses through the use of user models to both tailor the content of system utterances and to manipulate their conciseness.
ISSN:0364-0213
DOI:10.1016/j.cogsci.2004.06.002