Stina Ericsson

GoDiS: an accommodating dialogue system

This paper accompanies a demo of the GoDiS system. Work on this system was reported at IJCAI-99 (Bohlin et al., 1999). GoDiS is a prototype dialogue system for information-seeking dialogue, capable of accommodating questions and tasks to enable the user to present information in any desired order, without explicitly naming the dialogue task. GoDiS is implemented using the TRINDIKIT software package, which enables implementation of these behaviours in a compact and natural way.

Producing contextually appropriate intonation in an information-state based dialogue system

Our goal is to improve the contextual appropriateness of spoken output in a dialogue system. We explore the use of the information state to determine the information structure of system utterances. We concentrate on the realization of information structure by intonation. We present the results of evaluating the contextual appropriateness of varied system output produced with a text-to-speech synthesis system that supports intonation annotation.

Participation and Enjoyment in Play with a Robot between Children with Cerebral Palsy who use AAC and their Peers

Abstract This study explores children with complex communication needs, their peers and adult support persons in play with the talking and moving robot LekBot. Two triads were filmed playing with LekBot at pre-school. LekBot was developed to facilitate independent and enjoyable play on equal terms for children with significant communication disabilities and their peers. Using Conversation Analysis, participatory symmetry and enjoyment were investigated in relation to spoken and gestural communication, embodied stance, gaze, and affective display. Data originated from three video-recorded sessions that were approximately 2 hours long. Four different interaction situations were identified and explored: Participatory Asymmetry, Adult Facilitation, Greater Participatory Symmetry and Creativity, and Turn-taking and Enjoyable Play with LekBot. Neither participatory symmetry nor enjoyment were easily achieved in the play sessions and may require considerable effort, including adult involvement, but creative, spontaneous and highly enjoyable play, correlating with participatory symmetry to various degrees, was observed in a few instances. The findings are discussed with regard to play, AAC and the future development of robots to facilitate play.

Heteronormativity in First Encounters: An Interactional Analysis

Conversations between people who meet for the first time follow specific constraints. For instance, speakers are constrained as to what topics they can talk about, and how. Analysing recordings of non-institutional informal conversations in Norwegian between previously unacquainted speakers, this paper argues that conversationally appropriate displays of heterosexuality are a way of fulfilling constraints on friendly encounters in such settings. In the conversations this is done through references to former and present (heterosexual) partners, through talk about marriage and attraction, and through the construction of homosexuality as “the other” and as having negative connotations.

A dialogue system with contextually appropriate spoken output intonation

We demonstrate the production of spoken output with contextually appropriate intonation in the information-state based dialogue system GoDiS. We exploit the context representation in the information state to determine the information structure of system utterances, which we use to control the intonation of synthesized spoken output.

Children’s ongoing and relational negotiation of informed assent in child-researcher, child-child, and child-parent interaction

Contemporary considerations of childhood research ethics recognize children’s competence and agency, their rights to be informed about research and their capabilities to negotiate participation. There is also a recognition of children’s assent as ongoing and formed in the relationship with the researcher. Drawing on two different data sets, we investigate information and assent as they appear in child–researcher, child–child and child–parent interactions. We argue for the need to pay attention to participants’ own meaning-making with regard to informed assent, and show how the presence or non-presence of the researcher in data collection may affect information and assent.