PERSONAGE: Personality Generation for Dialogue

Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Association of Computational Linguistics, pages 496–503, Prague, Czech Republic, June 2007. c⃝2007 Association for Computational Linguistics PERSONAGE: Personality Generation for Dialogue Franc¸ois Mairesse Department of Computer Science University of Sheffield Sheffield, S1 4DP, United Kingdom F.Mairesse@sheffield.ac.uk Marilyn Walker Department of Computer Science University of Sheffield Sheffield, S1 4DP, United Kingdom M.A.Walker@sheffield.ac.uk Abstract Over the last fifty years, the “Big Five” model of personality traits has become a standard in psychology, and research has systematically documented correlations be- tween a wide range of linguistic variables and the Big Five traits. A distinct line of research has explored methods for automati- cally generating language that varies along personality dimensions. We present PER- SONAGE (PERSONAlity GEnerator), the first highly parametrizable language gener- ator for extraversion, an important aspect of personality. We evaluate two personal- ity generation methods: (1) direct genera- tion with particular parameter settings sug- gested by the psychology literature; and (2) overgeneration and selection using statistical models trained from judge’s ratings. Results show that both methods reliably generate ut- terances that vary along the extraversion di- mension, according to human judges. 1 Introduction Over the last fifty years, the “Big Five” model of per- sonality traits has become a standard in psychology (extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscien- tiousness, and openness to experience), and research has systematically documented correlations between a wide range of linguistic variables and the Big Five traits (Mehl et al., 2006; Norman, 1963; Oberlan- der and Gill, 2006; Pennebaker and King, 1999). A distinct line of research has explored methods for automatically generating language that varies along personality dimensions, targeting applications such as computer gaming and educational virtual worlds (Andr´e et al., 2000; Isard et al., 2006; Loyall and Bates, 1997; Piwek, 2003; Walker et al., 1997) inter alia. Other work suggests a clear utility for gener- ating language manifesting personality (Reeves and Nass, 1996). However, to date, (1) research in gener- ation has not systematically exploited the psycholin- guistic findings; and (2) there has been little evalua- tion showing that automatic generators can produce language with recognizable personality variation. Alt Realization Extra 5 Err... it seems to me that Le Marais isn’t as bad as the others. 1.83 4 Right, I mean, Le Marais is the only restaurant that is any good. 2.83 8 Ok, I mean, Le Marais is a quite french, kosher and steak house place, you know and the atmo- sphere isn’t nasty, it has nice atmosphere. It has friendly service. It seems to me that the service is nice. It isn’t as bad as the others, is it? 5.17 9 Well, it seems to me that I am sure you would like Le Marais. It has good food, the food is sort of rather tasty, the ambience is nice, the at- mosphere isn’t sort of nasty, it features rather friendly servers and its price is around 44 dol- lars. 5.83 3 I am sure you would like Le Marais, you know. The atmosphere is acceptable, the …

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