1984 Reports

Taking the Initiative in Problem-Solving Discourse

Matthews, Kevin; McKeown, Kathleen

Human participants in a conversation display a flexibility in shifting initiative not currently found 10 natural language processing systems. They frequently take charge of the dialogue to provide necessary, but unrequested Information Based on an analysis of transcripts of student advising dialogues, we present a. theory of role shifting that details the information needed to take the initiative, motivations for doing so, and expectations arising from the current discourse state motivations for taking the Initiative may arise either from the domain task or from the communication requirements of the dialogue itself. To maintain conversational coherence while taking the initiative a system must consider the expectations arising from the current topic and role states. We present data to support our conclusions which have implications for natural language computer systems.