Evaluating description and reference strategies in a cooperative human-robot dialogue system

Foster, Mary Ellen; Giuliani, Manuel; Isard, Amy; Matheson, Colin; Oberlander, Jon; Knoll, Alois

Abstract

We present a human-robot dialogue system that enables a robot to work together with a human user to build wooden construction toys. We then describe a study which assessed the responses of na¨ıve users to output that varied along two dimensions: the method of describing an assembly plan (pre-order or post-order), and the method of referring to objects in the world (basic and full). Varying both of these factors produced significant results: subjects using the system that employed a pre-order description strategy asked for instructions to be repeated significantly less often than those who experienced the post-order strategy, while the subjects
who heard references generated by the full reference strategy judged the robot’s instructions to be significantly more understandable than did those who heard the output of the basic strategy.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Twenty-first International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-09)
• Acceptance Date: Jul 11, 2009
• Publication Date: Jul 11, 2009
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: evaluating, description, reference, strategies, cooperative, human-robot, dialogue system
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/994400
• Publisher URL: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1661737
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : Twenty-first International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-09)