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A spoken dialog system for spontaneous conversations considering response timing and response type
Author(s) -
Nishimura Ryota,
Nakagawa Seiichi
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
ieej transactions on electrical and electronic engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.254
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1931-4981
pISSN - 1931-4973
DOI - 10.1002/tee.20616
Subject(s) - dialog box , naturalness , computer science , dialog system , speech recognition , generator (circuit theory) , decision tree , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , human–computer interaction , world wide web , power (physics) , physics , quantum mechanics
If a spoken dialog system can respond to a user as naturally as a human, the interaction will appear smoother. In this research, we aim to develop a spoken dialog system that emulates human behavior in a dialog. The proposed system makes use of a decision tree to generate responses at the appropriate times. These responses include ‘ aizuchi ’ (back‐channel), ‘repetition’, ‘collaborative completion’, etc. At each time interval, the decision tree generates the response timing features referring to the pitch and energy contours, recognition hypotheses, and the preparation status of the response generator. A subjective evaluation shows that there is a high degree of naturalness in the timing of ordinary responses and aizuchi , and that the spoken dialog system exhibits user‐friendly behavior. The recorded voice system was preferred to a text‐to‐speech system (synthesized speech), and almost all subjects felt familiarity with the aizuchi . © 2010 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.