Objectives: The spontaneous language sample analysis is an important part of the language assessment protocol. Language samples give us useful information about how children use language in the natural situations of daily life. The purpose of this study was to compare Conversation, Freeplay, and narrative speech in aspects of Mean Length of Utterance (MLU), Type-token ratio (TTR), and the numbe...

In 1969, Gordon Pask published a paper that explicitly proposed a vital connection between cybernetics and architecture. “The Architectural Relevance of Cybernetics” (Pask, 1969) was one outcome of an extraordinary series of debates and presentations centred around the theme of limits to science presented at the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) in London. The proceedings we...

In this talk we will discuss to what extent breathing kinematics can be used as a cue to turn-taking behaviour in spontaneous multiparty conversation. We improve on existing accounts by considering all possible transitions between speaker states (silent, speaking, backchanneling) and by not relying on global speaker models. Instead, all features (including breathing range and resting expiratory...

In this paper, we present a set of measures to quantify certain properties of threaded discussions, which are ubiquitous in online learning platforms. In particular, we address how to measure the redundancy of posts, the compactness of topics, and the degree of hierarchy in sub-threads. This preliminary work would very much benefit from discussion and serves as a starting point for ultimately c...

The rapid growth of the Internet, coupled with improved multimedia capabilities in computing, has expanded the options for using technology to support collaborative learning. Asynchronous electronic conferencing is commonly used to support distributed discourse-based learning. Mind Bridges is a Web-based threaded discussion forum with support for embedded multimedia content. This paper describe...

In this paper we present novel solutions to problems related to barge-in in telephony-based conversational systems. In particular we address recovery from falsely detected barge-in events and a method for signaling to the user that barge-in is disallowed at a particular dialogue state. The mechanisms and signals used to manage turn taking are similar to those in human-human conversation, which ...

Conventional discussion environments provide the technical platform for distributed discussion and collaboration, but apart from some statistical data collected, rarely provide information about the collaborative interactions taking place within the environement or even support the discussion by stimulating the learning setting according to the current situation. In this article we present our ...

Frontal asymmetry measured at rest using EEG is considered a stable marker of approach-avoidance behaviors and risk taking. We examined whether without salient cues of attention in the form of losses, predictability is reduced. Fifty-seven participants performed an experiential decision task in a gain-only, loss-only, and mixed (gains and losses) condition. Increased risk taking on the part of ...

Past empirical work suggests that aging is associated with decreases in risk taking. But are such effects universal? Life-history theory suggests that the link between age and risk taking is a function of specific reproductive strategies that can be more or less risky depending on the ecology. We assessed variation in the age-risk curve using World Values Survey data from 77 countries (N = 147,...

When we humans start a conversation, we are greeting at first. If computer and robot are greeting like us, they can communicate smoothly with us because the next subject comes easily after greeting. That is to say, greeting conversation plays an important part to smooth communications in speaking. In this report, we describe a method of increase the number of appropriate greeting sentences for ...