Search

Child's understanding and intentions are not always easy to read in drawings. This is particularly evident in the type of drawings we refer to as 'analytical drawings'. In order to understand analytical drawings made by preschool children, it is important to have a dialogue with the young authors. In our study, we examined the ability of students of pedagogy study programmes to interpret an example of a preschooler's analytic drawing where the intentions are not readily apparent. Using the example of an analytical drawing of a six-year-old girl, we designed a questionnaire that was administered to 226 students of the Faculty of Education at the University of Ljubljana. Using the questionnaire, we evaluated the students' ability to interpret the content and the child's intentions expressed in the analytical drawing, as well as their opinions about what they would find most useful to help them to interpret the girl's drawing. The results confirmed our hypothesis that it is impossible to understand, interpret, and evaluate these types of children's analytic drawings without a dialogue with a child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tsetlin Machines (TM) use finite state machines for learning and propositional logic to represent patterns. The resulting pattern recognition approach captures information in the form of conjunctive clauses, thus facilitating human interpretation. In this work, we propose a TM‐based approach to three common natural language processing (NLP) tasks, namely, sentiment analysis, semantic relation categorization and identifying entities in multi‐turn dialogues. By performing frequent itemset mining on the TM‐produced patterns, we show that we can obtain a global and a local interpretation of the learning, one that mimics existing rule‐sets or lexicons. Further, we also establish that our TM based approach does not compromise on accuracy in the quest for interpretability, via comparison with some widely used machine learning techniques. Finally, we introduce the idea of a relational TM, which uses a logic‐based framework to further extend the interpretability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a method for analyzing the dialogical functions of metaphors in communicative interactions, and more specifically in the context of medical interviews. The dialogical goals proposed and pursued by the interlocutors are coded using a coding scheme that captures seven mutually exclusive categories of dialogical moves. The functions of the moves, including metaphors, can be identified and correlated with other variables relevant to the type of communication under analysis. The coding scheme is used to analyze a corpus of 39 interactions between healthcare providers and patients affected by Type 2 diabetes. The exploratory quantitative analysis, for the purpose of determining the different distributions of metaphor uses between patients and providers, is combined with qualitative analysis in which the thematic areas of the metaphors are considered. The findings show how patients and providers use metaphors for pursuing different dialogical goals and meeting distinct communicative needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Research assessing clinical communication about sexual health is limited. We compared clinical communication about sexual health across patients' self-reports and coded dialogue in breast cancer outpatients.Methods: 134 patients had clinic visits audio-recorded and coded for sexual health communication and completed self-report questionnaires immediately after the visit. Associations between the self-report and dialogue were assessed using Phi coefficient. Agreements (present/absent) and discrepancies (omissions, commissions) about discussed topics were classified and discrepancies analyzed for themes.Results: Sexual health was discussed in 61 of 134 patient visits (46%). Associations were significant (p < .01) but differed by topic (φ = .27-.76). 37 women (23%) had ≥ 1 self-report error. Discrepancies were common (19 omissions, 29 commissions). Patients often omitted communication about sexual concerns when such concerns were not problematic, and interpreted non-specific discussions as including specific topics of concern, even when not explicitly stated. Omissions were more common for women with lower education.Conclusions: Patients' reports of whether sexual health communication occurs does not always align with observed dialogue, and may vary by personal relevance of the topic.Practice Implications: There are limitations in determining the prevalence of clinical communication about sexual health through patient self-report. Explaining sexual health terms might enhance shared understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Franz Xaver Kroetz is considered as a typical representative of social realism in Germany. His plays are essentially about family life situations in a rural or proletarian milieu. "Mensch Meier" is about the problem of social advancement in a family. Their everyday life is characterised by fear of loss of her husband's job and the detachment of her wife and son from their domestic environment. The article shows how successful steps in professional everyday life are reflected in changes of linguistic behaviour. This development is described in dialogue sequences using dialogue analysis. Values, norms and social rules are important when dealing with the characters and how they are expressed by the characters. Another aspect is the emotions and moral and social evaluations of the genders among each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different from statistically analyzed self-reports of Subjective Well-Being (SWB), we explored how dialogue engenders the meaning of SWB as constituted through an individual's daily experiences. A revised Day Reconstruction Method (DRM; Kahneman et al. 2004) was used to describe the participants' previous day episodically, followed by a semi-structured life world interview (Kvale 1996) for the explication through dialogue of those episodes. The results of qualitative analyses on the structure and contents of the discourse of the DRM and interviews with three participants highlighted the following: 1) the participants construed the meaning of daily experiences by organizing and weighting them in individualized ways; 2) the meaning of daily episodes emerged and was clarified in the process of collaborative dialogue in the interview as well as in the analyses, and was vividly expressed in particular protocol sequences; and 3) Kelly's (1955) notion of Personal Construct is applicable to make sense of individualized narratives as a form of Well-Being. We concluded that the subjectivity of SWB does not merely imply the first-person authority in charge of the evaluation in the questionnaires, but rather is understood as a construct that reveals the personal meaning of one's daily experiences. The emergent quality of this process is crucial for understanding the nature of subjectivity in SWB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Proposed an encoder–decoder for joint dialog act segmentation and recognition. • Used an attentional mechanism to integrate contextual information in dialogs. • Showed that exploiting context improves recognition accuracy. • The proposed model outperforms conventional models significantly. A dialog act represents the communicative function of an utterance in a conversation, and thus provides informative cues for understanding, managing, and generating dialog. While most spoken dialog systems process user input and system output at the turn level, a single turn can consist of multiple dialog acts in human conversations. Therefore, segmenting turn-level tokens into a meaningful dialog act unit is just as important as recognizing the dialog act. Towards joint segmentation and recognition of dialog acts, we propose an encoder–decoder model featuring joint coding and incorporate contextual information by means of an attentional mechanism. The proposed encoder–decoder outperforms other models in segmentation, and the application of attentions significantly reduces recognition error rates. By combining the encoder–decoder model with contextual attention, we achieve state-of-the-art performance in the joint evaluation of dialog act segmentation and recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable performance is necessary for long term existence of any business. Implementation of technology capabilities play important role in sustainable performance of any organization and especially for pharmaceutical firms. Therefore, the basic objective of current study was to examine the influence of technology capabilities (Technical Science, Level of Skills and Physical tools) on sustainable performance of pharmaceutical firms in Thailand with moderating role of organizational culture. To accomplish the purpose of study, the quantitative research approach with cross sectional method was adopted. This study found that technology capabilities have significant influence on sustainable performance of any organization and especially for pharmaceutical firms. Study also found significant moderating role of organizational culture between the relationship level of skills and physical tools with sustainable performance of any organization and especially for pharmaceutical firms. This study offers new information to the management regarding decision-making process. The findings will assist top management in planning for sustainable performance, implementation of technology and organization culture, especially in the context of pharmaceutical firms in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates participation problems in teams with mixed language proficiencies. Utilising an in-depth single case study approach and drawing on interactional data and interviews, it explores participation in team meetings. It takes a positioning theory approach, and analyses how the least proficient speaker is subtly positioned in various ways: as silent, different, difficult and incompetent. It argues that these positionings contribute to the marginalisation of his contributions in team meetings and in effectively silencing him and that this occurred through interactional patterns in which his contributions were a) ignored, b) dismissed outright and c) treated with only token interest. The paper ends by considering the range of factors, both interactional and attitudinal, that seem to have contributed to this silencing, including cultural stereotypes that seem to influence the dynamics of the interactions. • Less-proficient team members are marginalised in intercultural teams. • They are positioned as difficult, different & incompetent independent of expertise. • Contributions are silenced interactionally, excluding them from influencing tasks. • Repetition perpetuates positionings and prevents repositioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Research into small-group collaboration during middle to late childhood shows that while individual understanding can be promoted through exchanging differing opinions, the joint analyses that groups construct while collaborating play a tangential role. Individuals may or may not accept these constructions depending upon processes of reflection and reconciliation that are triggered through difference and sometimes occur post-group. Recognizing a dearth of research with older participants (together with inconclusive suggestions that collaborative constructions may become more significant with age), the reported study examines the impact of small-group collaboration during adolescence and early adulthood. Forty-six pairs of students aged between 10 and 22 years worked on a computer-presented task that required them to discuss and predict the trajectories objects follow when they fall from stationary or moving carriers. Associations between group dialogue and post-test performance confirmed a key role for differing opinions while collaborative constructions turned out to have little relevance. Highlights • Extensive data on adolescents' and young adults' understanding of object fall. • Dialogue around differing opinions shown to boost understanding. • Knowledge growth found to be unrelated to the quality of group analyses. • Growth interpreted as the interplay of dialogue, meta-cognition, and feedback. • Processes that apply with older learners parallel those established with children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine two systematic observation methods intended to be used by pre-service and in-service teachers to help increase their awareness of children's participation in productive classroom dialogue. We identify the affordances of these methods for supporting teachers' reflective practice, focusing in this case on students' equitable participation in science groupwork activities. This involves the use of Teacher-SEDA (T-SEDA), a sub-scheme of SEDA (Cam-UNAM Scheme for Educational Dialogue Analysis), which was empirically trialled by a mixed group of researchers and teachers, using video-recordings from primary science classrooms in the UK and Mexico. The T-SEDA trials reported in this paper compare a 'simulated live' approach based on time-sampling techniques, with a 'follow-up analysis' approach, which uses audio-recordings and transcripts. The findings suggest that using either technique regularly can aid teachers in noticing classroom events and adjusting teaching accordingly. The 'live' coding approach appears to be the more practical method that teachers could use to audit the development of classroom equitable participation. However, the follow-up analysis emerged as a more informative approach, shedding light on more ambiguous cases of relative participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How we engage the community within our institutions, from higher education to social services, requires consistent reconceptualization. Many fields benefit from engaging the community; yet research around practical methods for engagement is limited. This study describes the process of using nominal group technique as a practical method for both community and academic members to discuss Community Based Participatory Research. Participants included faculty, staff, students, and community member stakeholders of a medical institution during a community engagement themed conference. The goal of this study was to assess the effectiveness of using the nominal group technique for community and academic members to discuss the principles of Community Based Participatory Research. Through this discussion a significant change in the research paradigm was addressed by focusing on the importance of dialogue in order to have an impact on health disparities. This study serves to illustrate a method for bringing community and academic members together around discussion of a complex topic, while simultaneously identifying general perceptions around Community Based Participatory Research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much in the field of statutory interpretation is predicated on "interpretive dialogue" between courts and legislatures. Yet, the idea of such dialogue is often advanced as little more than a slogan; the dialogue that courts, legislators, and scholars are imagining too often goes unexamined and underspecified. This Article attempts to organize thinking about the ways participants and theorists conceive, and should conceive, of interbranch dialogue within statutory interpretation. The Article itself proceeds by using a dialogic and dialectical method. It first develops various positions against "interbranch dialogue." By invoking arguments from textualism, public choice, and positive political theory, it advances the position that dialogue should not animate thinking in statutory interpretation. With that auspicious start, the Article then explores in conceptual and descriptive terms what would count as true dialogic activity. Interbranch dialogue is not reducible to mere textual pronouncements or anticipatory signaling efforts. Rather, it is best understood as responsive communication between the two institutions, in which each party listens to, takes seriously, and values what the other party says and thinks, even if there is disagreement on particular interpretive outcomes or their implications. This communication may emerge in unscripted or unanticipated terms or it may flow more formally from mechanisms designed to generate responsive exchange. The Article highlights and examines numerous modes of dialogue that are initiated by the legislature and also by the courts, using examples from both federal and state levels. The Article concludes by rehabilitating and rejuvenating the dialogue model in normative terms, drawing interbranch dialogue back to its legal process roots and revealing its links to more contemporary deliberative democratic theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Breast cancer patients' sexual health needs are frequently unmet. We examined the prevalence and content of communication about sexual health between breast cancer patients and clinicians.Methods: Female breast cancer patients being seen in oncology clinic follow-up had a clinic visit audio recorded and self-reported sexual problems after the visit. Transcripts were coded for sexual health communication; data were analyzed descriptively or using Chi-square tests.Results: We recorded 67 patients (81% participation rate) interacting with one of 7 cancer clinicians (5 physicians; 2 advanced practice clinicians). Approximately 1/3 of women (n = 22) reported sexual problems; sexual health communication occurred with 10/22 of those women (45%). Across all 67 patients, 27 (40%) visits contained communication about sexual health. Seventy-percent of sexual health communication was clinician-initiated. When in-depth sexual health discussions occurred, the most common topics discussed were sexual inactivity (6), body image (5), vaginal dryness (4), and safety of sexual activity (2).Conclusion: Communication about sexual health was uncommon even for women reporting sexual problems and was largely initiated by clinicians.Practice Implications: Because women with breast cancer often do not raise sexual concerns during clinic visits, breast cancer clinicians should raise the topic of sexual health for all patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of WhatsApp as a means of communication is widespread amongst today's youth, many of whom spent hours in virtual space, in particular during the evenings and nighttime in the privacy of their own homes. This article seeks to contribute to the discussion of the dialogical language and "conversations" conducted in virtual-space encounters and the way in which young people perceive this space, its affect on them, and their interrelations within it. It presents the findings of a study based on a community of philosophical inquiry in which young adults students discussed the "I" and "Thou" (the other) and the interaction between them in a WhatsApp community. The results evince that the youth related to the virtual space in very similar fashion to Buber's "I-Thou" concept, the language they employed to describe what happened in it enabling an expansion of the conceptualization and research language to an "I-Space-Thou" model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a writing assignment "Conversations with Myself (CWM)" for students which encourages them to speak up their experiences with the help of a two-part process of text analysis and autobiographical or dialogic writing. Topics discussed include a case study related to importance of literacy for identification, importance of autobiographical writing and guidelines for English language arts (ELA) teachers.

Building effective communication of non-medical personnel of a medical center with a patient or perspective client at the stage of primary contact as a problem of medical ethics and deontology is currently not well understood, but requires close attention not only to study medical discourse as a whole, but also to increase the attractiveness of a medical center for consumers of services. In this study, an approach to assessing communication in the information call-center of a medical organization was considered through an interview with representatives of different cultures: Russian and American. Research objective: Identification of intercultural differences in the views of Russian and American respondents about the ideal dialogue between the administrators of a medical call center with a potential client who called the call center for information. Materials and methods. The research was conducted by interviewing Russian and American respondents. The study did not study the correlation with other sampling parameters, except for belonging to a cultural group (Russian or American respondents). Results: Analyzing respondents' opinions on the welcoming part, both groups note the importance of greeting phrases and the name of the organization. Their opinions differ significantly in terms of the need to indicate the administrator's name in the conversation and use courtesy constructions like "Can I help you?" in the end of the conversation. A similar attitude to the courtesy constructions is demonstrated, analyzing the structure of the end of a conversation: respondents of group A only 12- 16% note the necessary expressions, unlike respondents of group B (60-72%). 54% of respondents in group A and 64% in group B noted that the administrator can hang up the phone first. Analyzing the respondents' opinions to the situation when the administrator cannot answer the caller's question, it is revealed that the respondents of group A demonstrate a more loyal attitude to the incompetence of the administrator: 18% of the respondents of group A (up to 2% of the respondents of group B) consider this situation to be acceptable and only 2% Of these, the reasons for administrator incompetence are of interest (against 28% in Group B) Group B respondents cite clearer characteristics of the administrator's ideal timbre for voice and more stringent requirements for clear vocabulary compared to group A respondents. Conclusions: The research showed the differences in the respondents' perceptions about the ideal dialogue between the administrator of a medical call center and a caller, which may be related to intercultural characteristics. By indirect evidence, it can be assumed that service behavior in medical centers in Russia is in its infancy and for more effective improvement it is advisable to take into account not only the opinion of Russian consumers of medical services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Viewing dialogue management as a reinforcement learning task enables a system to learn to act optimally by maximising a reward function. This reward function is designed to induce the system behaviour required for the target application and for goal-oriented applications, this usually means fulfilling the user’s goal as efficiently as possible. However, in real-world spoken dialogue system applications, the reward is hard to measure because the user’s goal is frequently known only to the user. Of course, the system can ask the user if the goal has been satisfied but this can be intrusive. Furthermore, in practice, the accuracy of the user’s response has been found to be highly variable. This paper presents two approaches to tackling this problem. Firstly, a recurrent neural network is utilised as a task success predictor which is pre-trained from off-line data to estimate task success during subsequent on-line dialogue policy learning. Secondly, an on-line learning framework is described whereby a dialogue policy is jointly trained alongside a reward function modelled as a Gaussian process with active learning. This Gaussian process operates on a fixed dimension embedding which encodes each varying length dialogue. This dialogue embedding is generated in both a supervised and unsupervised fashion using different variants of a recurrent neural network. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of both off-line and on-line methods. These methods enable practical on-line training of dialogue policies in real-world applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dialogue act recognition is an important component of a large number of natural language processing pipelines. Many research works have been carried out in this area, but relatively few investigate deep neural networks and word embeddings. This is surprising, given that both of these techniques have proven exceptionally good in most other language-related domains. We propose in this work a new deep neural network that explores recurrent models to capture word sequences within sentences, and further study the impact of pretrained word embeddings. We validate this model on three languages: English, French and Czech. The performance of the proposed approach is consistent across these languages and it is comparable to the state-of-the-art results in English. More importantly, we confirm that deep neural networks indeed outperform a Maximum Entropy classifier, which was expected. However, and this is more surprising, we also found that standard word2vec embeddings do not seem to bring valuable information for this task and the proposed model, whatever the size of the training corpus is. We thus further analyse the resulting embeddings and conclude that a possible explanation may be related to the mismatch between the type of lexical-semantic information captured by the word2vec embeddings, and the kind of relations between words that is the most useful for the dialogue act recognition task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a new methodology to enhance an existing traditional Spoken Dialogue System (SDS) with optimal turn-taking capabilities in order to increase dialogue efficiency. A new approach for transforming the traditional dialogue architecture into an incremental one at a low cost is presented: a new turn-taking decision module called the Scheduler is inserted between the Client and the Service. It is responsible for handling turn-taking decisions. Then, a User Simulator which is able to interact with the system using this new architecture has been implemented and used to train a new Reinforcement Learning turn-taking strategy. Compared to a non-incremental and a handcrafted incremental baselines, it is shown to perform better in simulation and in a real live experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responsive evaluation honors democratic and participatory values and intends to foster dialogues among stakeholders to include their voices and enhance mutual understandings. The question explored in this article is whether and how responsive evaluation can offer a platform for moral learning (Bildung) in the interference zone between system and lifeworld. A case example from Dutch psychiatry is presented. Policy makers aimed to develop a “monitoring instrument” for closed psychiatric wards to protect patient rights and prevent incidents. Tensions arose between strategic action and system values (accountability, efficiency, control, safety) and the search for meaning and morality. Several dynamics were set in motion. Through the creation of communicative spaces in which there was room for expression of emotions and stories, the “colonization” by system values was countered. Another dynamic called “culturalization” started simultaneously, that is, adoption of lifeworld values in the system world, which resulted in constructive dialogues on the meaning of good care and moral learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When discussing literature, one needs to take into consideration various theories of translation and hermeneutics in interpreting a text. Hermeneutics, or the science of interpretation, "develops from the old art of divination and becomes the most important critical instrument of producing texts" (Spăriosu 9). Using several hermeneutic lenses, I would like to show that literature creates an appropriate context for a reconceptualization of the word dialogue. Literature mediates the reconfiguration of the word dialogue into a triad, comprising two persons (self+ other / I+ you) and a third constituent. How can one conceptualize this third element? Why is it relevant for the interaction between individuals? How does literature contribute to raising awareness of the presence of a third participant in a dialogue?. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Task-oriented dialogue systems need to take appropriate actions not only for clear user requests but also for ambiguous and vague ones. In this study, "ambiguous" denotes that although users have potential requests, they failed to clearly define and verbalize their content and conditions which can be associated with system actions. For such ambiguous requests, taking reflective actions is one plausible choice for such systems. In our study, "reflective" denotes taking actions that satisfy user requests before the users themselves clarify their demands. We constructed such a reflective dialogue agent by collecting a corpus that includes pairs of ambiguous user requests and corresponding reflective system actions on sightseeing navigation with a smartphone. Since annotating every possible combination of user requests and system actions is impossible, this study built a corpus where one reflective action is annotated to one ambiguous user request. To train an action selection model on such incomplete training data in which only one action is associated with a request, we applied the positive/unlabeled (PU) learning method, which assumes that only part of the data is labeled with positive examples. In addition, we enhanced the action selection by extracting and distilling knowledge that corresponds to causality from the training data using a causality detection model. The experimental results show that both the PU learning method and the causality detection model improved the performances of the reflective action selection compared to the conventional positive/negative (PN) learning method. • We built a reflective action selection system given ambiguous user requests. • We collected a dialogue corpus that bridges ambiguous requests to reflective actions. • We explored whether several actions can be reflective for one request on test data. • We applied the PU learning method to deal with partially annotated training data. • We distilled causality knowledge to utilize in the reflective action selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As knowledge-grounded dialogue systems are attracting intense research interest, technology that facilitates reference to various types of external knowledge as dialogue-system data is also developing. A knowledge-grounded dialogue system must be capable of (1) accurately interpret the conversation content, (2) determining whether external knowledge should be referenced for the current turn, (3) identifying the external knowledge to be referenced, and (4) generating a response. If the referenced external knowledge is in the form of a question–answer pair, this pair is closely related to the domain to which the external knowledge belongs and the entity to which it pertains. This study proposes a knowledge-grounded dialogue system that predicts the domain and entity associated with a question–answer pair referenced by the dialogue system; the system then leverages this information to effectively implement the above three external-knowledge-based capabilities. As the dialogue data associated with external knowledge is diverse, adaptation to the slots and entities of different dialogue datasets is challenging. In this study, the Triple Copy (TripPy) model, which is one of the leading benchmark models for dialogue-state tracking with the Multi-domain Wizard-of-Oz (MultiWOZ) dataset, is further developed to adapt to DSTC10 data for the external knowledge-based dialogue system; hence, dialogue content is effectively interpreted. The developed knowledge-grounded dialogue system incorporates knowledge-seeking turn detection, knowledge selection, and knowledge-grounded response generation models. The model, in DSTC10 dataset, achieves 15.49%p, 12.54%p, and 36.45%p improvements over the baseline, the state-of-the-art model for the previous version of the data (DSTC9 dataset), in terms of the F1 score, Recall@1 score, and BLEU-1 score, respectively. Moreover, in a dialogue-state tracking task for DSTC10 dataset, a 15.41%p improvement in joint goal accuracy score is achieved compared to the TripPy model. • A goal-oriented dialogue system using external knowledge to respond to a user is proposed. • Adapting a dialogue-state tracking model to targeting datasets to well understand a conversation. • The advanced knowledge-grounded dialogue system using the extracted entities and tracked domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the mediator practices to bring the interaction back on track when the participants of dispute mediation go off-task. An existing collection of 18 transcripts from audio recordings of mediation sessions at a mediation center in the western United States serves as a source of interactional data. First, the study examines the moves mediators make to perform interventions to bring the current state of activity more in line with mediation activity. Second, it accounts for the variety of interventions mediators perform using the concepts of face and facework. The article discusses what the findings mean in terms of mediation, the interaction order and the institutional order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an increasingly prevalent cognitive disorder in which memory, language, and executive function deteriorate, usually in that order. There is a growing need to support individuals with AD and other forms of dementia in their daily lives, and our goal is to do so through speech-based interaction. Given that 33% of conversations with people with middle-stage AD involve a breakdown in communication, it is vital that automated dialogue systems be able to identify those breakdowns and, if possible, avoid them. In this article, we discuss several linguistic features that are verbal indicators of confusion in AD (including vocabulary richness, parse tree structures, and acoustic cues) and apply several machine learning algorithms to identify dialogue-relevant confusion from speech with up to 82% accuracy. We also learn dialogue strategies to avoid confusion in the first place, which is accomplished using a partially observable Markov decision process and which obtains accuracies (up to 96.1%) that are significantly higher than several baselines. This work represents a major step towards automated dialogue systems for individuals with dementia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Typically enmeshed in the ‘voice’ perspective within children’s participation debates, there are currently sporadic insights into designer–child creative dialogue. Drawing on the findings of a Leverhulme Trust-funded research project, this paper articulates moments of dialogue between architects and children in spatial design processes, whose spatial and symbolic qualities help to understand the interactions and meeting of cultures. Several authors have discussed the transformational potential for adults and children to ‘co-author’ identities in dialogical contexts. The paper builds on this body of research to suggest that design dialogue offers the space, literally and metaphorically, for children and architects to participate together. Identifying the qualities of the dialogic design space as potentially present in children’s and adults’ everyday cultures and interdependent relations, it is proposed that this dialogical framework might diversify architects’ and children’s roles in the design process and enrich practices and perceptions of design participation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this chapter, the authors share insights from a dialogue project focused on intersectionality within a residential life setting and discuss additional strategies for helping students understand intersectionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Referring to visually perceivable objects is a very common occurrence in everyday language use. In order to produce expressions that refer, the speaker needs to be able to pick out visual properties that the referred object has and determine the words that name those properties, such that the expression can direct a listener's attention to the intended object. The speaker can aid the listener by looking in the direction of the object and by providing a pointing gesture to indicate it. In order to resolve the reference, the listener has a difficult job to do: simultaneously use all of the linguistic and non-linguistic information; the words of the referring expression that denote properties of the object, such as its colour or shape, need to already be known, and the non-linguistic gaze direction and pointing gesture of the speaker need to be incorporated. Crucially, the listener does not wait until the end of the referring expression before she begins to resolve it; rather, she is interpreting it as it unfolds. A model that resolves referring expressions as the listener must be able to do all of these things. In this paper, we present such a generative model of reference resolution. We explain our model and show empirically through a series of experiments that the model can work incrementally (i.e., word for word) as referring expressions unfold, can incorporate multimodal information such as gaze and pointing gestures in two ways, can learn a grounded meaning of words in the referring expression, can incorporate contextual (i.e., saliency) information, and is robust to noisy input such as automatic speech recognition transcriptions, as well as uncertainty in the representation of the candidate objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We define epistemic order as the way in which the exchange and development of knowledge takes place in the classroom, breaking this down into a system of three components: epistemic initiative relating to who sets the agenda in classroom dialogue, and how, epistemic appraisal relating to who judges contributions to classroom dialogue, and how, and epistemic framing relating to the terms in which development and exchange of knowledge are represented, particularly in reflexive talk. These components are operationalised in terms of various types of structural and semantic analysis of dialogue. It is shown that a lesson segment displays a multi-layered epistemic order differing from that of conventional classroom recitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observing others in conversation is a common format for comprehending language, yet little work has been done to understand dialog comprehension. We tested whether overhearers use addressee backchannels as predictive cues for how to integrate information across speaker turns during comprehension of spontaneously produced collaborative narration. In Experiment 1, words that followed specific backchannels (e.g., really, oh) were recognized more slowly than words that followed either generic backchannels (e.g., uh huh, mhm) or pauses. In Experiment 2, we found that when the turn after the backchannel was a continuation of the narrative, specific backchannels prompted the fastest verification of prior information. When the turn after was an elaboration, they prompted the slowest, indicating that overhearers took specific backchannels as cues to integrate preceding talk with subsequent talk. These findings demonstrate that overhearers capitalize on the predictive relationship between backchannels and the development of speakers' talk, coordinating information across conversational roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study develops a communicative model of collaboration failure to address one of the key challenges of collaboration theory and practice: the discrepancy between the promise of collaboration and the reality of persistent failure. A theoretical framework is developed based on notions of dialogue, discourse, and coorientation, which informs three key aspects of collaboration: knowledge production, shared identity, and collective agency. This theoretical framework is then combined with analytic themes from an empirical case study of a failed civil society collaboration. Themes of communication practice that constitute collaborative failure are detailed, while also contrasting these with alternative practices that can enable more successful collaboration. Further implications are discussed, specifically in terms of rethinking common collaboration dualisms of structure/process and talk/action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a technique to improve the performance of spoken dialogue systems that not only consider knowledge about the semantic frames used by systems to understand the spoken language but also employ knowledge about the words in the system application domain that are used to complete frame slots. Using both knowledge sources, the technique considers specific word sequences to form what we call word-islands and which are then employed to create the language models and dictionary used by the system’s speech recogniser. Word-islands are easier to recognise than the words comprising the islands, which leads to improved spoken language understanding and system performance. Experiments have been conducted using two spoken dialogue systems which had previously been developed in our lab: one to provide fast food information and the other to provide bus travel information. Results show that the proposed technique improves the performance of both systems by improving speech recognition and spoken language understanding of sentence types that are difficult to process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the impact of discussion forum design and facilitative strategies on student participation and cognitive levels of student dialogue. A multiple-case study design was used. Three online classes taught by the same instructor participated (n= 55). Data were collected from observations, discussion transcripts, and teacher interviews. Results from content analysis of the discussion transcripts showed that the teacher’s role in online discussions is influential in student participation and learning. Instructional strategies such as participation requirements and question design were related to an increase in participation and cognitive levels of student dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One issue that is often ignored in political theory is the problem of means and modes of communication affecting dialogue between parties. In this age of hyper communication, this is something particularly relevant. The point here is that, despite the ease with which we have access to both means and modes of communication, there remains the problem of truly communicating and truly dialoguing with the Other. Michel Serres’ work Le Parasite is a seminal work on this issue. According to him, in means and modes of communication, the parasite is an unwanted entity that interferes with what would otherwise be a clear connection between a sender and a receiver. But messages must pass through means and modes of communication, and this necessarily interferes with the message. The noise is therefore a constitutive feature of any form of communication. In this article, I assess the implications of Serres’ theory for Buber’s views on dialogue and for conflict resolution between individuals and communities in conflict. My discussion will be centred on informal education and will make reference to concrete instances of Anti-Semitism in the Middle-Eastern media, and how it affects relations between communities in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Starting from the socio-constructivist concepts of (virtual) community of practice (vCoP) and internet-based argumentative open-ended learning environments, this study proposes and validates two tools for automated dialogue assessment, ReaderBench and Important Moments , developed on the ground of the polyphonic social knowledge building model. The analyzed corpus was the dialogue produced by an academic vCoP with N = 179 community members in 23 months, and consisting of 3685 interventions in 292 text-based discussion threads. The analysis results uncovered significant differences in the discussion threads produced by central and peripheral participants, such that central participants produced more interventions with higher collaborative dialogue quality, and the discussion threads they initiated were longer and involved a larger number of participants. Moreover, based on the automated analysis result, the vCoP participants could be classified in two clusters corresponding to the well-known core-periphery structure of CoPs. These findings are consistent with those revealed by other methods, and suggest that the employed tools are appropriate for identifying virtual communities that are appropriate as open-ended learning environments. Further research and development is needed to deepen quantitative vCoP models and test communication strategies recommended to students in vCoP-based argumentative open-ended learning environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a method of applied practice that engages contested historical meanings of intercommunal and international conflict. The concept of conflict history is introduced to describe a worldview of a conflict-affected community that seeks a coherent explanation of the origin, evolution, and significance of the conflict it faces. Four interconnected perspectives on conflict history-orthodox, different, mediative, and alternative-are explored to bridge empirical inquiry into the divided past with possibilities of future coexistence. The study builds on psychoanalysis and memory research, as well as on the author's experience in conflict resolution dialogues across the Taiwan Strait. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on his work with a child patient struggling with affect regulation, loss, and his adoption through a detailed process account of the treatment with a focus on the therapist’s inner dialogue in relation to the child’s play and words—how each affects the other. Drawing from his personal use of clinical theory stemming from multiple theoretical influences, the author shows how his associations, identifications, and tentative formulations inform his work and how the various transference/countertransference matrices influence his inner dialogue. Attention is paid to the movement from the therapist as an object within the patient’s closed system to a system that gradually becomes more open, in which the patient is able to take in the therapist’s own person as they come upon various ways to communicate and build a narrative together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how dialogue between policymakers from various countries can assist in generating learning responding to dilemmas faced when integrating migrants fully within local communities. It considers existing contributions from various forms of international exchanges between policymakers on migrant integration and highlights the importance of generating deeper exchanges incorporating more critical mutual reflection. These dilemmas include minimizing prejudice and discrimination.

This essay examines civic dialogue that is connected to local roots. The conceptual emphasis suggests that locality often houses what one might term monologic tendencies. The conviction of this essay is that without acknowledgment and understanding of what matters to another, that is, of the importance of monologue, the possibility of maintaining a vital public sphere that is open to a multiplicity of ideas and positions is minimal. In this essay, the term monologue is not to be confused with a particular style of communication, but IS the ground of the conviction that one takes into a given discourse. Monologue houses the ground of the conviction that shapes what we seek to protect and promote in a given communicative exchange. Monologue is the creative engine of conviction that shapes the uniqueness of our participation and contribution to any potential dialogic interaction. To illustrate this point, I turn to the Scottish Enlightenment and the insights of Adam Ferguson as he wrote them in An Essay on the History of Civil Society. The essay explicates a series of implications that arise from Ferguson's work and have relevancy to an understanding of civic dialogue that accounts for the local. Ferguson's distinct contribution was his refusal to dismiss the monologic sentiments of places of particularity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship of dialogue to integrity. It sets out a traditional philosophical view of integrity, noting that these are predominantly assertive, holding certain principles or values against others, and therefore they do not involve dialogue. Based on more recent views on integrity, which stress agency, the paper then develops a view of integrity based on a threefold view of responsibility. This view is based on dialogue, and with that a greater engagement with plural values and a complex social environment. The paper looks at the nature of that dialogue, and then goes on to examine implications for the practice and theory of dialogue itself. The paper uses illustrations from the Mid Staffs Hospital Trust case and from fiction, with the example of Shakespeare's Henry V. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the theoretical and practical basis for engaging in dialogue with very disadvantaged people. Using a selective literature review, conceptual analysis, and clinical examples, we explore the reasonable limits of dialogue with disadvantaged populations in order to better understand dialogue, as well as to explore ways to effectively involve disadvantaged people in dialogue. Although people with serious mental illness represent only one very disadvantaged population, we suggest that examining dialogue with this population can serve as a test case for dialogue with disadvantaged people more generally. A recovery-oriented approach can support dialogue processes with people who have mental illness, as their recovery may require, or at least benefit from, dialogue. The inclusion of two clinical scenarios serves to highlight differences in clinical and personal recovery outcomes when dialogue is and is not present in mental health care. Furthermore, although it is not required from a standard principles-based bioethical approach, involving people with mental health issues in dialogue can complement a standard bioethics approach, through dialogical bioethics. A dialogical approach goes beyond the standard principles of bioethics by means of a process that allows relevant bioethical principles to be prioritised, based in part on the person's informed choice. Overall, our findings suggest that involving very disadvantaged people in dialogue -- in this case, people with serious mental illness -- is not only possible, it is plausible and can be constructive in relation to a variety of dialogical aims that range from informing to supporting to decision-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how dialogue between policymakers from different countries can help generate learning which responds to the dilemmas they face when seeking to integrate migrants more fully within local communities. These dilemmas include reducing prejudice and discrimination between those who don't want to interact, and building collective belonging whilst valuing the complexity of diverse individual identities. The article highlights ways in which the ethical dimensions of the dialogue process can interact with the ethical dimensions of the issues under discussion within such policymakers' dialogues. In the process, the article demonstrates how research which adopts dialogical approaches, whilst being critically aware of these ethical dimensions, can help to address the gaps and limitations in existing policymakers' understandings, by generating improved exchanges of learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, I examine the nature of ethical dialogue from the point of view of its foundations in the critique of the dominant, disinterested conception of ethics, relating this to my 20 year experience corresponding with students taking courses with Pathways to Philosophy, including a prisoner on Death Row, Texas, USA. Ethical dialogue, where we seek the best outcome by our collective lights, is contrasted with activity in the business arena, where traders are assumed to be acting from purely self-interested motives. The role of philosophy as an activity of seeking, in the words of the metaphysician F.H. Bradley, 'bad reasons for what we believe on instinct' is examined from the point of view of our practical interest in learning how to engage in ethical dialogue, as well as the need to defend the theory of ethical dialogue against rival views. From the standpoint of theory, the ethics of dialogue is the conclusion of a three-part dialectical argument involving the refutation of solipsism and the subsequent refutation of anti-solipsism. Looking at ethical dialogue from the standpoint of praxis, it appears that learning ethical dialogue is more like learning to dance than learning an intellectual game like chess. It can't be taught from a book. One learns ethical dialogue by engaging in ethical dialogue. One consequence of this radical conception of ethics is a new version of the problem of akrasia. You have the knowledge and the will, but fail ethically because of your practical inability to engage the other person in ethical dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving change in assessment practices in higher education is difficult. One of the reasons for this is resistance among those responsible for teaching and assessing. This paper seeks to explore this resistance through an analysis of staff dialogue during a major attempt to change the assessment practices at one institution. An institution-wide intervention to pilot new assessment practices was initiated, involving 35 academics across 12 departments. This paper reports on patterns emerging in dialogue about this among academics, and between academics and educational development personnel. Findings suggest that resistance is not a unitary concept, but that different stakeholders under varied circumstances express it differently; and that resistance to assessment change is particularly resilient. Implications are discussed in terms of relevance to current theories of higher education assessment and learning change management, as well as the practical considerations of attempts by institutions to engage in assessment change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]