9202458 Brennan This is the third year of a three-year continuing award. The goal of this research is to better understand the interactive process of human language use with a computer system. The theory underlying this research is that human-computer interaction, like human communication, falls into a class of coordinated actions that proceeds by the systematic exchange of evidence of understanding. Two processes are examined: a) entrainment, which is hypothesized to influence lexical choice, and b) grounding, which is hypothesized to set the level and placement of appropriate feedback. Psychological experiments will use simulated language and voice interfaces to examine 1) what variables influence the lexical choice people make and how such a system might adapt to idiosyncratic language input, 2) what kind of text output should the system generate to present itself as a coherent dialog partner, and 3) what kinds of context-sensitive feedback should a speech or language interface provide. The goals are to contribute to the design of adaptive user interfaces, to enable more robust error handling, and to make natural language, command, and voice interfaces easier for people to use.
