Coordinating turn-taking with gaze

This paper explores the role of gaze in coordinating turn-taking in mixed-initiative conversation and specifically how gaze indicators might be usefully modeled in computational dialogue systems. We analyzed about 20 minutes of videotape of eight dialogues by four pairs of subjects performing a simple face-to-face cooperative laboratory task. We extend previous studies by explicating gaze patterns in face-to-face conversations, formalizing the most frequent pattern as a computational model of turn-taking, and testing the model through an agent-based simulation. Prior conversation simulations of conversational control acts relied on abstract speech-act representations of control. This study advances the computational account of dialogue through simulation of direct physical expression of gaze to coordinate conversational turns.