Error Handling in Spoken Dialogue Systems August 28-31, 2003 Château d'Oex, Vaud, Switzerland

Handling Errors and Determining Confirmation Strategies: an Object-Based Approach

Michael McTear (1), Ian O'Neill (2), Philip Hanna (2), Xingkun Liu (2)

(1) School of Computing and Mathematics University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, UK
(2) School of Computer Science, Queens University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK

Errors can occur at every level of a dialogue, from the recognition of what words were spoken to the understanding of the intentions behind the words. Our approach to errorhandling assumes that errors cannot be avoided in spoken dialogue and that it is more useful to focus on methods for detecting and dealing with miscommunication when it occurs. An object-based architecture is presented that supports decisions as to what sorts of confirmations should be used at various stages within a dialogue and how a dialogue agent can address miscommunication arising from user misconceptions.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  McTear, Michael / O'Neill, Ian / Hanna, Philip / Liu, Xingkun (2003): "Handling errors and determining confirmation strategies: an object-based approach", In EHSD-2003, 129-132.