Interactive question answering and constraint relaxation in spoken dialogue systems

Varges, Sebastian; Weng, Fuliang; Pon-Barry, Heather

doi:10.1017/s1351324908004889

Cited by 15 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…It has also been shown that word frequency and speech rate have an effect on shortterm serial recall [11]. In particular, we seek a better understanding of how to present search results over audio while not overwhelming the users with information [21], nor leaving users uncertain as to whether what they have covered the information space [22]. However, we believe that conveying information through an interactive channel will alleviate some complexities which are associated with speech and will allow users to find information in an efficient and effective manner.…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spoken Conversational Search

Trippas

2016

Proceedings of the 2016 ACM on Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval

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This research investigates a new interface paradigm for interactive information retrieval (IIR) which forces us to shift away from the classic "ten blue links" search engine results page. Instead we investigate how to present search results through a conversation over a speech-only communication channel where no screen is available. Accessing information via speech is becoming increasingly pervasive and is already important for people with a visual impairment. However, presenting search results over a speech-only communication channel is challenging due to cognitive limitations and the transient nature of audio. Studies have indicated that the implementation of speech recognizers and screen readers must be carefully designed and cannot simply be added to an existing system. Therefore the aim of this research is to develop a new interaction framework for effective and efficient IIR over a speech-only channel: a Spoken Conversational Search System (SCSS) which provides a conversational approach to defining user information needs, presenting results and enabling search reformulations. In order to contribute to a more efficient and effective search experience when using a SCSS, we intend for a tighter integration between document search and conversational processes.

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Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spoken Conversational Search

Trippas

2016

Proceedings of the 2016 ACM on Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval

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“…Systems proactively suggest additional refinements for underconstrained queries, as in You could try to look for cuisine type? (Pon-Barry, Weng, and Varges 2006;Varges, Weng, and Pon-Barry 2006), or relaxations for over-constrained queries, as in Would a slightly more expensive flight work for you? (Qu and Beale 1999;Pon-Barry, Weng, and Varges 2006).…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Qu and Beale 1999;Pon-Barry, Weng, and Varges 2006). Additionally, constraints can be relaxed automatically based an ontology (Varges, Weng, and Pon-Barry 2006) or by predefining relaxation sets (e.g., from a specific street for a restaurant to the broader neighborhood) or categorical ones (e.g., relaxing Chinese to Asian) (Chung 2004).…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Strategy for Information Presentation in Spoken Dialog Systems

Demberg

Winterboer

Moore

2011

Computational Linguistics

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In spoken dialog systems, information must be presented sequentially, making it difficult to quickly browse through a large number of options. Recent studies have shown that user satisfaction is negatively correlated with dialog duration, suggesting that systems should be designed to maximize the efficiency of the interactions. Analysis of the logs of 2,000 dialogs between users and nine different dialog systems reveals that a large percentage of the time is spent on the information presentation phase, thus there is potentially a large pay-off to be gained from optimizing information presentation in spoken dialog systems. This article proposes a method that improves the efficiency of coping with large numbers of diverse options by selecting options and then structuring them based on a model of the user's preferences. This enables the dialog system to automatically determine trade-offs between alternative options that are relevant to the user and present these trade-offs explicitly. Multiple attractive options are thereby structured such that the user can gradually refine her request to find the optimal trade-off. To evaluate and challenge our approach, we conducted a series of experiments that test the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. Experimental results show that basing the content structuring and content selection process on a user model increases the efficiency and effectiveness of the user's interaction. Users complete their tasks more successfully and more quickly. Furthermore, user surveys revealed that participants found that the user-model based system presents complex trade-offs understandably and increases overall user satisfaction. The experiments also indicate that presenting users with a brief overview of options that do not fit their requirements significantly improves the user's overview of available options, also making them feel more confident in having been presented with all relevant options.

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“…At least one recent study [14] suggests that timelimited utterances, particularly those five seconds and under, are more understandable than longer ones, given the same speaking rate; likely this is due to humans' relatively short auditory memory. Other research suggests generic answers to specific queries is inadequate [15], given that there may be a mismatch between the system and user understanding, and thus replies reiterating the query constraints would serve as implicit confirmation of the user's request, making the overall conversation more understandable. Note that these issues will tend to work against each other; finding a balance between a short, but informative and comfirming utterance would appear to be significant in generating understandable speech.…”

Section: Detailsmentioning

confidence: 99%

ugloss: a framework for improving spoken language generation understandability

Langner

Black

2007

Interspeech 2007

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Understandable spoken presentation of structured and complex information is a difficult task to do well. As speech synthesis is used in more applications, there is likely to be an increasing requirement to present complex information in an understandable manner. This paper introduces uGloss, a language generation framework designed to influence the understandability of spoken output. We describe relevant factors to its design and provide a general description of our algorithm. We compare our approach to human performance for a straightforward task, and discuss areas of improvement and our future goals for this work.

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Interactive question answering and constraint relaxation in spoken dialogue systems

Cited by 15 publications

References 32 publications

Spoken Conversational Search

Spoken Conversational Search

A Strategy for Information Presentation in Spoken Dialog Systems

ugloss: a framework for improving spoken language generation understandability

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