Local alignment of frame of reference assignment in English and Swedish dialogue

Abstract:

In this paper we examine how people assign, interpret, negotiate and repair the frame of reference (FoR) in online text-based dialogues discussing spatial scenes in English and Swedish. We describe our corpus and data collection which involves a coordination experiment in which dyadic dialogue participants have to identify differences in their picture of a visual scene. As their perspectives of the scene are different, they must coordinate their FoRs in order to complete the task. Results show that participants do not align on a global FoR, but tend to align locally, for sub-portions (or particular conversational games) in the dialogue. This has implications for how dialogue systems should approach problems of FoR assignment -- and what strategies for clarification they should implement.

Research areas:

• Dialogue
• DiET chat tool
• Alignment
• Online text chat

Year:

2020

Type of Publication:

In Proceedings

Editor:

Jurģis Šķilters and Nora S. Newcombe and David Uttal

Book title:

Spatial Cognition XII: Papers from 12th International Conference, Spatial Cognition 2020/21

Address:

Riga, Latvia