Conversational Interaction Studies
In an ongoing series of studies, we would like to investigate features
of "natural" and "ideal" conversational interactions involving
augmented communicators, with the goal of developing AAC designs that
realize these conversational features.
General Motivations
- Why are we performing studies on conversational interaction?
Two reasons: to identify some of the interactive features that
normally take place, and to ensure that our assumptions when designing
AAC systems are consistent with these features.
- Interactive Features in Natural Conversation
-
Conversational utterances are rarely produced in
isolation. Conversation partners co-construct utterances by asking
each other questions, offering suggestions, and making corrections.
- What AAC design will most effectively facilitate interactive participation in a conversation?
- Would incorporating some of these interactive features into the AAC system be beneficial to the augmented communicator?
- Validation of System Design Assumptions
-
Inherent in the design of our AAC systems are a number of
assumptions. For instance, Compansion
currently assumes that the user will input all important content words
in the correct order for the sentence.
We need to verify
and validate our assumptions, and investigate the natural patterns of
input to the AAC system. If our assumptions are inaccurate, systems
may need to be modified to correctly interpret conversational input.
Lisa Michaud
-- michaud@asel.udel.edu
Last modified: Fri Jan 30 15:47:31 EST 1998