Spoken dialogue interfaces are nding usage in a number of important applications. Conversational moves are the atoms of the interaction between a user and the computer system. We are building a portable toolkit for constructing dialogue interfaces in diier-ent applications. Portability requires that we endow this toolkit with a wide range of conversational moves. The conversational moves conven...

Most telecommunication systems are used for communication between two people which interact during a conversation. In general, the quality of conversational speech is the major indicator for telecommunication-service providers to evaluate their systems. In this context, not only the assessment of the overall quality but also the analysis of the conversational speech quality is essential. We pre...

The present study attempts to uncover language teachers’ beliefs about oral corrective feedback. It also explores the role of teachers’ experiences in their choice of error correction techniques. To achieve the purpose of the study, 137 foreign language teachers were asked to fill out the developed questionnaire and follow-up interviewed were conducted with 10 teachers, five novice and experien...

In this paper we present results from an investigation on correlations between subjective and objective evaluation metrics for young people using a conversational agent. The subjective evaluation metrics capture users’ experiences of different aspects of conversations with a virtual agent while the objective evaluation metrics are based on an analysis of the actual conversation between the user...

hal should a conversational foreilln lanllualle tutoring system say next'? The choice is nslrain..:d by two ~Is of considerations: the demands of conversational continuity and the Igua!;e pro!;ress of th~ stuJent. An introduction to these potentially conl1icling 'Iuirements is the topic of an earlier paper [I]. The present study provides a more . hnieal analysis of the conversational side of th...

Regardless of whether the humans involved are virtual or real, well-developed conversational skills are a necessity. The synthesis of interface agents that are not only understandable but also believable can be greatly aided by knowledge of which facial motions are perceptually necessary and sufficient for clear and believable conversational facial expressions. Here, we recorded several core co...

In this paper we describe a design approach for an Artificial Conversational Companion according to earlier identified requirements of utility, adaptivity, conversational capabilities and long-term interaction. The Companion is aimed to help advanced learners of a foreign language to practice conversation via instant messenger dialogues. In order to model a meaningful long-term interaction with...

Conversational agents are exploding in popularity. However, much work remains in the area of non goal-oriented conversations, despite significant growth in research interest over recent years. To advance the state of the art in conversational AI, Amazon launched the Alexa Prize, a 2.5-million dollar university competition where sixteen selected university teams built conversational agents to de...