Communicative Resources

How Do We Communicate?

• Conversation involves more than language– Face-to-face has widest

range of information– Written text removes

all of this additional information

• Conversation as ensemble work– Should not be viewed as alternating series of actions– Listeners provide feedback during expression that crucially

affects speaker

Conversational Organization• Local control

– Turn taking as collaborative action

– Ordered set of options at turnover: • Speaker selects next speaker• Self-selection• Current speaker continues

– Silences are ambiguous (gap or pause)• Know people who are frustrating to talk to because they break

these rules– They do not provide gaps– They step in when there is no opening

• Some people apply rules to interactions with machines

To speak To listen

Speaker cues

Turn maintaining

Turn yielding

Listener cues

Turn requesting

Turn denying

Sequential Organization and Coherence

• Reply should be related to preceding sentence or becomes a non-sequitur– How we judge intelligence?

• Absence of reply is also a reply due to social contract of conversation

• Rules are neither optional or obligatory

• Statements provide context for answer in unpredictable ways– “I gotta work.” or “Cream and sugar?”

• Referent can be part or whole conversation

Locating and Remedying Trouble• Conversational pattern supports this

– Gaps provide opportunities for • Requests for clarification• Statements that can indicate

misinterpretation– Lack of turn taking can signify

breakdown• Example of palpitations and feet• “A crucial part of interactional

competence is the ability to judge whether some evidence that the recipient has misunderstood warrants the work required for repair.”

Specialized Forms of Conversation

• Legal and medical questioning• Limits (but does not get rid of)

conversational options for listener

• Conversational forms can cause problems– Doctors start hypothesizing

before collecting all symptoms• Relationship to human-

computer communication

Case of the Complex Copier

Case of the Complex Copier

• Expert help system– Maps user’s goals to job specification to plans

• Goals constrained by functionality• Plans must accommodate semi-ordered

actions– Plans recognized part-way points– Changes in preconditions

• Some actions produce recognizable effects

Instructions

• Following instructions turns partial descriptions into concrete actions

• Instructions rely on recipient’s ability to anchor descriptions– Although system/we see only effect of that

• Execution can include “unpredictable” interpretations (e.g. lucky pan)

• Communicating instructions can rely on a combination of language, materials, history

• Existence of interaction more important to success than whether instructions are written or spoken

Method

• Keep (video++) record of action as well as interpretations– Dual role of lists (as intended action and as

performed action)• Two people working together– Motivate communication about interpretation

of instructions that can be captured• Model actions vs. shared understanding

The User The Machine

Actions not available

Actions available

Effects observable

Design rationale