Measuring Conformity to Discourse Routines in Decision-Making Interactions

Measuring Conformity to Discourse Routines in Decision-Making Interactions Sherri L. Condon Claude G. ~ech William R. Edwards Department of English Department of Psychology Center for Advanced Computer Studies condo@usl.edu cech@usl.cdu wre@cacs.usl.cdu University of Southwestern Louisiana/Universit~ des Acadiens Lafayette, LA 70504 Abstract In an effort to develop measures of discourse level management strategies, this study examines a measure of the degree to which decision- making interactions consist of sequences of utterance functions that are linked in a decision- making routine. The measure is applied to 100 dyadic interactions elicited in both face-to-face and computer-mediated environments with systematic variation of task complexity and message-window size. Every utterance in the interactions is coded according to a system that identifies decision-makmg functions and other routine functions of utterances. Markov analyses of the coded utterances make it possible to measure the relative fi'equencies with which sequences of 2 and 3 utterances trace a path in a Markov model of the decision routine. These proportions suggest that interactions in all conditions adhere to the model, although we find greater conformity in the computer-mediated environments, which is probably due to increased processing and attmfional demands for greater efficiency, The results suggest that measures based on Markov analyses of coded interactions can provide useful measures for comparing discourse level properties, for correlating discourse features with other textual features, and for analyses of discourse management strategies. Introduction Increasingly, research in computational linguistics has contributed to knowledge about the organization and processing of human interaction through quantitative analyses of annotated texts and dialogues (e.g. Carletta et al., 1997; Cohen et al., 1990, Maier et al., 1997; Nakatani et al., 1995; Passonneau, 1996; Walker, 1996). This program of research presents opportunities to examine the relation between linguistic form and pragmatic functions using large corpora to test hypotheses and to detect covariance among discourse features. For example, Di Eugenio et al. (1997) demonstrate that utterances coded as acceptances were more likely to corefer to an item in a previous turn. Grosz and Hirschberg (1992) investigate intonational correlates of discourse structure. These researchers recognize that discourse-level structures and strategies influence syntactic and phonological encoding. The regularities observed can be exploited to resolve language processing problems such as ambiguity and coreference, to integrate high level planning with encoding and interpretation strategies, or to refine statistics-based systems. In order to identify and utilize discourse- based structures and strategies, researchers need methods of linking observable forms with discourse functions, and our focus on discourse management strategies has motivated similar goals. Condon & (~ech (1996a,b) use annotated decision-making interactions to investigate properties of discourse routines and to examine the effects of communication features such as screen size on computer-mediated interactions (~ech & Condon, 1997). In this paper we present a method for measuring the degree to which an 238 interaction conforms to a discourse routine, which not only allows more refined analyses of routine behavior, but also permits fine-grained comparison of discourses obtained under different conditions. In our research, discourse routines have emerged as a fundamental strategy …

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