Extracting interval distribution of human interactions

Abstract

Recently, activity support systems that enable dialogue with humans have been intensively studied owing to the development of various sensors and recognition technologies. In order to enable a smooth dialogue between a system and a human user, we need to clarify the rules of dialogue, including how utterances and motions are interpreted among human users. In conventional study on dialogue analysis, duration between the time when someone finishes an utterance and the time when another human starts the next utterance were analyzed. In a real dialogue between humans, however, there are sufficient intervals between an utterance and a visually observable motion such as bowing and establishing eye-contact; the facilitation of communication and cooperation seem to depend on these intervals. In our study, we analyze interactions that involve utterances and motions at a reception scenario by resolving motions into motion primitives (a basic unit of motion). We also analyze the timing of utterances and motions in order to structure dialogue behaviors. Our result suggest that a structural representation of interaction can be useful for improving the ability of activity support systems to interact and support human dialogue. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.