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An Approach to Mixed Initiative Spoken Information Retrieval Dialogue

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Abstract

We present an approach to mixed initiative dialogue in acoustic user interfaces to databases. First, we discuss how we distinguish between initiative and control in mixed initiative information retrieval dialogue and how the notions of taking, keeping, and relinquishing initiative and control are reflected in our approach. Based on this discussion, we develop a dialogue planning algorithm. This algorithm distinguished between resources and routines and between the type and the content of an utterance; type and content are calculated separately by routines that reason on the resources – a dialogue model, a dialogue history, and an application description. Through this division we achieve a dialogue where the system adapts to the user's attempts at changing the direction of a dialogue. Finally, we argue that automatic segmentation of the dialogue and automatic tracking of initiative and control is inherent to our approach.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada

    Eli Hagen

  2. Deutsche Telekom, Berkom, Darmstadt, Germany; e-mail

    Eli Hagen

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Hagen, E. An Approach to Mixed Initiative Spoken Information Retrieval Dialogue. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction 9, 167–213 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008300826159

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