Symbolic
Conversation Modeling Used As Abstract Part of the User Interface
Norbert Braun
Department of Digital Storytelling
Computer Graphics Center, Rundeturmstraße 6
64283 Darmstadt
Germany
Norbert.Braun@zgdv.de http://www.zgdv.de/distel
ABSTRACT
The art of conversation is a well-known
interaction type between humans. Human-computer interfaces that follow this
metaphor struggle with complex problems of speech understanding, speech
generation and intelligent conversational behavior in general. This paper
presents an approach that gives a simple, explicit symbolic model of
conversation between human and computer to be used by interface designers as an
abstract platform of conversational interaction – without being forced to
regard the basic implementations of speech systems or graphical anthropomorphic
avatars or virtual humans and therefore free from the problems of basic media
manipulation.
Keywords: conversation, human-computer
interaction, symbolic modeling, artificial intelligence, computer games.