COSC6330.03 Computational Pragmatics (Fall 2006)
Calendar Course Description
Many interactive systems strive to afford the same mechanisms to
human users that are used in face-to-face conversation. This course
examines the formal models and computational techniques that concern
the pragmatics of language use that such systems employ.
Expanded course description below
Instructor
Professor Melanie Baljko
Office hours: by appointment, CSEB2028
Email: mb [at] cse [dot] yorku [dot] ca
All questions/comments are welcome.
Course Information
Fall 2006 Term (First class: Sept 7; Final class: Nov 30):
-
Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:30-13:00, Bethune College, Room 225
Auditors are welcome.
Lecture Schedule
Can be found here. (Subject to change.)
Course Structure
-
10% - Class discussion. Contributions to be in the form of questions or comments.
- 30% - Paper Synopses. 2-page summary to be prepared for each
student-presented paper. To be submitted electronically (preferably
in pdf format) by the start of class. Number of precis due depends on the number of student-presented papers (to be determined)
- 30% - Presentation(s). Each
student will present 1 or 2 papers (depending on number of number of students enrolled).
Sign-up for presentations will be done in the first two weeks of class.
- 30% - Project. A survey paper or an implementation, topic
to be discussed with the instructor. Type and topic of project to be
mutually agreed-upon by Friday, Oct 13.
Expanded Course Description
Many interactive systems attempt to make use of the same mechanisms
that are used by humans in face-to-face conversation. Conversation,
which is but one of several "forums of language use", is
characterized by the free exchange of conversational turns. Any
interactive system must make use of a mechanism whereby the system's
output and the system user's input are structured and interleaved;
moreover, the mechanisms used in human conversational turn-taking
are often held as an ideal, since they are intuitive and have
already been mastered by human users. This course introduces the
primary models of conversational turn-taking and examines several
computational techniques to track and to model automatically the
interaction's status with respect to conversational turn.
Conversational exchanges are also characterized by the use of
multiple modes (such as speech, gaze, gestures of the head and
hands, and facial expression). Many interactive systems afford
their users the opportunity to use these modes as well. A special
class of interactive systems, embodied communicative agents or ECAs,
make use of lifesize humanoid animated agents which are also capable
of making use of these modes in order to communicate with their
human users. This course introduces the main formal frameworks for
distinguishing among modes of communication and examines the
computational techniques for the automatic interpretation of
multimodal user actions and the automatic generation of multimodal
system actions.
Systems that have been designed to afford interactions that are
conversational in nature are often touted as more natural,
use-friendly, effecient, effective, and intuitive. This course
examines the primary methods of evaluation that have been applied in
the research community.
The primary mode of inquiry for this course will be the examination
of exemplar interactive systems. The accomplishments and
limitations of the existing models and techniques will be presented
and open research problems will be discussed.