A model for habitable and efficient dialogue management for natural language interaction

Abstract

Natural language interfaces require dialogue models that allow for robust, habitable and efficient interaction. This paper presents such a model for dialogue management for natural language interfaces. The model is based on empirical studies of human computer interaction in various simple service applications. It is shown that for applications belonging to this class the dialogue can be handled using fairly simple means. The interaction can be modeled in a dialogue grammar with information on the functional role of an utterance as conveyed in the linguistic structure. Focusing is handled using dialogue objects recorded in a dialogue tree representing the constituents of the dialogue. The dialogue objects in the dialogue tree can be accessed by the various modules for interpretation, generation and background system access. Focused entities are modeled in entities pertaining to objects or sets of objects, and related domain concept information; properties of the domain objects. A simple copying principle, where a new dialogue object's focal parameters are instantiated with information from the preceding dialogue object, accounts for most context dependent utterances. The action to be carried out by the interface is determined on the basis of how the objects and related properties are specified. This in turn depends on information presented in the user utterance, context information from the dialogue tree and information in the domain model. The use of dialogue objects facilitates customization to the sublanguage utilized in a specific application. The framework has successfully been applied to various background systems and interaction modalities. In the paper results from the customization of the dialogue manager to three typed interaction applications are presented together with results from applying the model to two applications utilizing spoken interaction.