Wataru Tsukahara

Prosodic features which cue back-channel responses in English and Japanese

Back-channel feedback, responses such as uh-uh from a listener, is a pervasive feature of conversation. It has long been thought that the production of back-channel feedback depends to a large extent on the actions of the other conversation partner, not just on the volition of the one who produces them. In particular, prosodic cues from the speaker have long been thought to play a role, but have so far eluded identification. We have earlier suggested that an important prosodic cue involved, in both English and Japanese, is a region of low pitch late in an utterance (Ward, 1996). This paper discusses issues in the definition of back-channel feedback, presents evidence for our claim, surveys other factors which elicit or inhibit backchannel responses, and mentions a few related phenomena and theoretical issues.

A Responsive Dialog System

Modeling language as people really use it is an elusive goal. Today, thanks to advances in speech recognition, dialog systems capable of understanding the meaning of user input and replying with appropriate information exist, but there are as yet no systems which interact naturally with humans. Two problems are: 1. Priority is given to understanding and responding accurately; but for human dialog, being responsive and interactive is also important. 2. The granularity of interaction is the sentence; but for human dialog, interaction happens more frequently, in real time, often with overlapping utterances; Given that such responsiveness is important to human language use, the question arises: how do we build systems with these abilities? The obvious approach is to add these abilities to a meaning based speech system. An alternative approach is to take these abilities as a basic foundation, and to layer meaning-based processing on top of this, subsumption-style (Ward, 1997).

Design and Implementation of a Database System for Foreign-word Learning Materials by iPods

Mobile devices are suitable for learning the vocabulary of a foreign language. It is effective to memorize foreign words with images and pronunciations. Hence, we developed the MultiPod system to learn foreign words by an iPod. However, if we use the MultiPod system in practice, there is the burden that a large amount of movie materials must be prepared. If the users could make their own materials and share them among the users, this burden would be relaxed. Therefore, we also implemented the HodgePodge system to support the creation of the materials. In this study, we have designed and implemented a database system PodBase, which accumulates the movie materials generated by HodgePodge to share them among the users. In the designing process, we introduced some devises to exclude the malicious users. In addition, the database system can offer information concerning the popular users/materials, thus leading to the enhancement of the learning materials as a whole.

Exam script analysis from a pen and paper device

This paper presents the idea of exam script analysis and the design to provide it as well as the support for examiners to mark exams written using pen and paper devices. It also describes partial implementation going on. Pen and paper devices capture the traces of pen movement (called digital ink), allowing the answers to be reorganized independent from paper format, analyzed and marked semi-automatically under the examiners supervision. Furthermore, digital ink carries time stamp for each stroke so that we can use this information to analyze the question answering process of the examinees such as revisions in the answer given for a question, the time taken in answering a question and so on. This information also allows us to consider the appropriateness of the exam design and improve it.