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<Paper uid="P89-1016">
  <Title>THE EFFECTS OF INTERACTION ON SPOKEN DISCOURSE</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="126" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
INTRODUCTION
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Many basic issues need to be addresssed before technology will be able to leverage successfully from the natural advantages of speech.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> First, spoken interfaces will need to be structured to reflect the realities of speech instead of text. Historically, language norms have been based on written modalities, even though spoken and written communication differ in major ways (Chafe, 1982; Chapanis, Parrish, Ochsman, &amp; Weeks, 1977). Furthermore, it has become clear that the algorithms and heuristics needed to design spoken language systems will be different from those required for keyboard system s (Cohen, 1984; Hindle, 1983; Oviatt &amp; Cohen, 1988 ~: 1989; Ward, 1989). Among other things, speech understanding systems tend to have considerable difficulty with the indirection, confirmations and reaffirmations, nonword fillers, false starts and overall wordiness of human speech (van Katwijk, van Nes, Bunt, Muller &amp; Leopold, 1979). To date, however, research has not yet provided accurate models of spoken language to serve as a basis for designing future spoken language systems. null People experience speech as a very rapid, direct, and tightly interactive communication modality, one that is governed by an array of conversational rules and is rewarding in its social effectiveness. Although a full. y interactive exchange that includes confirmatory feedback and clarification subdialo~mes is the prototypical or netural form of speech, near-term spoken language systems are likely to provide only limited interactive capabilities. For example, lack of adequate confirmatory feedback, variable delays in interactive processing, and limited prosodic analysis all can be expected to constrain interactions with initial systems. Other speech technology, such as voice mail and automatic dictation devices (Gould, Conti &amp; Hovanyecz, 1983; Jelinek, 1985), isdesigned specifically for noninteractive speech input. Therefore, to the extent that interactive and noninteractive spoken language differ, future SLSs may require tailoring to handle phenomena typical of noninteractive speech. That is, at least for the near term, the goal of designing SLSs based on models of fully interactive dialogne may be inappropriate. Instead, building accurate speech models for SLSs may depend on  an examination of the discourse and performance characteristics of both interactive and noninteractive spoken language in different types of tasks. Unfortunately, little is known about how the opportunity for interactive feedback actually influences a spoken discourse. To begin examining the influence of speaker interaction, the present research aimed to investigate the main distinctions between interactive and noninteracrive speech in a hands-on assembly task. More specifically, it explored the discourse and performance features of telephone dialogues and audiotape monologues, which represent opposites on the spectrum of speaker interaction. Since keyboard is the modality upon which most current natural language heuristics and algorithms are based, the discourse and performance patterns observed in the two speech modalities also were contrasted with those of interactive keyboard.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Modality comparisons were performed for teams in which an expert instructed a novice on how to assemble a hydraulic water pump. A hands-on assembly task was selected since it has been conjectured that speech may demonstrate a special efficiency advantage for this type of task.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> One purpose of this research was to provide a comprehensive analysis of differences between the interactive and noninteractive speech modalities in discourse structure, referential characteristics, and performance efficiency. Of these, the present paper will focus on the predominant referential differences between the two speech modes. A fuller treatment of modality distinctions is provided elsewhere (Oviatt &amp; Cohen, 1988). Another goal involved outlining patterns in common between the two speech modalities that differed from keyboard. A further objective was to consider the implications of any observed contrasts among these modalities for the design of prospective speech systems that are habitable, high quality, and relatively enduring. Since future SLSs will depend in part on adequate models of spoken discourse, a final goal of this research was to begin constructing a theoretical model from which several principal features of interactive and noninteractive speech could be derived. For a discussion of the theoretical model, which is beyond the scope of the present research summary, see Oviatt &amp; Cohen (1988).</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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