Exploring the Characteristics of Multi-party Dialogues

Exploring the Characteristics of Multi-Party Dialogues Masato Ishizaki Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology Tatsunokuchi, Noumi, Ishikawa, 923-1292, Japan masatoQjaist.ac.jp Tsuneaki Kato NTT Communication Science Labs. 2-4, Hikaridai, Seika, Souraku, Kyoto, 619-0237, Japan kato@cslab.kecl.ntt.co.jp Abstract This paper describes novel results on the char- acteristics of three-party dialogues by quantita- tively comparing them with those of two-party. In previous dialogue research, two-party dia- logues are mainly focussed because data col- lection of multi-party dialogues is difficult and there are very few theories handling them, al- though research on multi-party dialogues is ex- pected to be of much use in building computer supported collaborative work environments and computer assisted instruction systems. In this paper, firstly we describe our data collection method of multi-party dialogues using a meet- ing scheduling task, which enables us to com- pare three-party dialogues with those of two party. Then we quantitively compare these two kinds of dialogues such as the number of characters and turns and patterns of informa- tion exchanges. Lastly we show that patterns of information exchanges in speaker alternation and initiative-taking can be used to characterise three-party dialogues. 1 Introduction Previous research on dialogue has been mostly focussing on two-party human-human dialogue for developing practical human-computer dia- logue systems. However, our everyday commu- nicative activities involves not only two-party communicative situations but also those of more than two-party (we call this multi-party). For example, it is not unusual for us to chitchat with more than one friend, or business meetings are usually held among more than two participants. Recently advances of computer and network- ing technologies enable us to examine the possi- bility of using computers to assist effective com- munication in business meetings. As well as this line of computer assisted communication research, autonomous programs called 'agents', which enable users to effectively use comput- ers for solving problems, have been extensively studied. In this research trend, 'agent' is sup- posed to be distributed among computers, and how they cooperate for problem solving is one of the most important research topics. Pre- vious studies on two party dialogue can be of some use to the above important computer re- lated communication research, but research on multi-party interaction can contribute more di- rectly to the advances of the above research. Furthermore, research on multi-party dialogue is expected to make us understand the nature of human communication in combination with the previous and ongoing research on two-party dialogue. The purpose of this paper is to quantitively show the characteristics of multi-party dia- logues in comparison with those of two-party using actual dialogue data. In exploring the characteristics of multi-party dialogues to those of two-party, we will concentrate on the follow- ing problems. What patterns of information ex- changes do conversational partici- pants form? When abstracting the types of speech acts, in two-party dialogues, the pattern of information exchanges is that the first and second speakers alternately contribute (A-B-A-B ...). But in multi- party dialogues, for example, in three-party dialogues, dialogue does not seem to pro- …

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