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Interactive question answering and constraint relaxation in spoken dialogue systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2009

S. VARGES ,
F. WENG  and
H. PON-BARRY
S. VARGES
Affiliation:
Department of Information and Communication Technology, University of Trento, 38050 Povo di Trento, Italy e-mail: varges@dit.unitn.it
F. WENG
Affiliation:
Bosch Research and Technology Center, 4009 Miranda Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA e-mail: fuliang.weng@us.bosch.com
H. PON-BARRY
Affiliation:
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, 33 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA e-mail: ponbarry@eecs.harvard.edu
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Abstract

We explore the relationship between question answering and constraint relaxation in spoken dialogue systems and develop dialogue strategies for selecting and presenting information succinctly. In particular, we describe methods for dealing with the results of database queries in information-seeking dialogues. Our goal is to structure the dialogue in such a way that the user is neither overwhelmed with information nor left uncertain as to how to refine the query further. We present two sets of evaluation results for a restaurant selection task: one is a system performance evaluation experiment involving twenty subjects, the other is an experimental evaluation of the use of suggestions involving sixteen subjects.

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Type
Papers
Information
Natural Language Engineering , Volume 15 , Special Issue 1: Interactive Question Answering , January 2009 , pp. 9 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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