Interruption Impossible

Most current work on spoken human-computer interaction has so far concentrated on interactions between a single user and a dialogue system. The advent of ideas of the computer or dialogue system as a conversational partner in a group of humans, for example within the CHIL-project and elsewhere (e.g. Kirchhoff & Ostendorf, 2003), introduces new requirements on the capabilities of the dialogue system. Among other things, the computer as a participant in a multi-part conversation has to appreciate the human turn-taking system, in order to time its’ own interjections appropriately. As the role of a conversational computer is likely to be to support human collaboration, rather than to guide or control it, it is particularly important that it does not interrupt or disturb the human participants. The ultimate goal of the work presented here is to predict suitable places for turn-takings, as well as positions where it is impossible for a conversational computer to interrupt without irritating the human interlocutors.