Producing Acoustic-Prosodic Entrainment in a Robotic Learning Companion to Build Learner Rapport

abstract: With advances in automatic speech recognition, spoken dialogue systems are assuming increasingly social roles. There is a growing need for these systems to be socially responsive, capable of building rapport with users. In human-human interactions, rapport is critical to patient-doctor communication, conflict resolution, educational interactions, and social engagement. Rapport between people promotes successful collaboration, motivation, and task success. Dialogue systems which can build rapport with their user may produce similar effects, personalizing interactions to create better outcomes. This dissertation focuses on how dialogue systems can build rapport utilizing acoustic-prosodic entrainment. Acoustic-prosodic entrainment occurs when individuals adapt their acoustic-prosodic features of speech, such as tone of voice or loudness, to one another over the course of a conversation. Correlated with liking and task success, a dialogue system which entrains may enhance rapport. Entrainment, however, is very challenging to model. People entrain on different features in many ways and how to design entrainment to build rapport is unclear. The first goal of this dissertation is to explore how acoustic-prosodic entrainment can be modeled to build rapport. Towards this goal, this work presents a series of studies comparing, evaluating, and iterating on the design of entrainment, motivated and informed by human-human dialogue. These models of entrainment are implemented in the dialogue system of a robotic learning companion. Learning companions are educational agents that engage students socially to increase motivation and facilitate learning. As a learning companion’s ability to be socially responsive increases, so do vital learning outcomes. A second goal of this dissertation is to explore the effects of entrainment on concrete outcomes such as learning in interactions with robotic learning companions. This dissertation results in contributions both technical and theoretical. Technical contributions include a robust and modular dialogue system capable of producing prosodic entrainment and other socially-responsive behavior. One of the first systems of its kind, the results demonstrate that an entraining, social learning companion can positively build rapport and increase learning. This dissertation provides support for exploring phenomena like entrainment to enhance factors such as rapport and learning and provides a platform with which to explore these phenomena in future work.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Computer Science 201

Peer interaction and learning opportunities in cohesive and less cohesive L2 classrooms

The present study investigates peer to peer oral interaction in two task based language teaching classrooms, one of which was a self-declared cohesive group, and the other a self- declared less cohesive group, both at B1 level. It studies how learners talk cohesion into being and considers how this talk leads to learning opportunities in these groups. The study was classroom-based and was carried out over the period of an academic year. Research was conducted in the classrooms and the tasks were part of regular class work. The research was framed within a sociocognitive perspective of second language learning and data came from a number of sources, namely questionnaires, interviews and audio recorded talk of dyads, triads and groups of four students completing a total of eight oral tasks. These audio recordings were transcribed and analysed qualitatively for interactions which encouraged a positive social dimension and behaviours which led to learning opportunities, using conversation analysis. In addition, recordings were analysed quantitatively for learning opportunities and quantity and quality of language produced. Results show that learners in both classes exhibited multiple behaviours in interaction which could promote a positive social dimension, although behaviours which could discourage positive affect amongst group members were also found. Analysis of interactions also revealed the many ways in which learners in both the cohesive and less cohesive class created learning opportunities. Further qualitative analysis of these interactions showed that a number of factors including how learners approach a task, the decisions they make at zones of interactional transition and the affective relationship between participants influence the amount of learning opportunities created, as well as the quality and quantity of language produced. The main conclusion of the study is that it is not the cohesive nature of the group as a whole but the nature of the relationship between the individual members of the small group completing the task which influences the effectiveness of oral interaction for learning.This study contributes to our understanding of the way in which learners individualise the learning space and highlights the situated nature of language learning. It shows how individuals interact with each other and the task, and how talk in interaction changes moment-by-moment as learners react to the ‘here and now’ of the classroom environment.O presente estudo é uma investigação no âmbito da interacção oral em pares em duas salas de aula: um grupo auto declarado coeso, outro declarado menos coeso, ambos de nível B1. O estudo revela a forma como os alunos criam coesão e oportunidades de aprendizagem através do discurso. O estudo foi baseado em exercícios práticos desempenhados em sala de aula, tendo sido desenvolvido ao longo de um ano lectivo académico. Isto é, a investigação é o resultado da observação e análise do trabalho prático regular realizado em aula pelos discentes. A pesquisa foi enquadrada numa perspectiva sociocognitiva de aprendizagem da segunda língua, e a informação provém de um conjunto de fontes metodologicamente utilizadas, nomeadamente questionários, entrevistas e registos áudio das conversas das díades, tríades e grupos de quatro alunos, num total de oito tarefas de oralidade. Os registos áudio foram transcritos e qualitativamente analisados para interacções que estimulavam uma dimensão social positiva, e comportamentos que conduziam a oportunidades de aprendizagem usando Conversation Analysis. Além disso, os registos foram também analisados quantitativamente relativamente às oportunidades de aprendizagem e à qualidade e quantidade de linguagem produzida. Em ambas as turmas, os resultados indicam múltiplos comportamentos interactivos por parte dos estudantes, comportamentos esses que promovem uma dimensão social positiva, embora tenham sido detectados também, comportamentos que podem desencorajar a afectividade entre os elementos do grupo. A análise do processo de interacção revelou também as diversas formas através das quais os estudantes criaram oportunidades de aprendizagem em ambos os grupos; o coeso e o menos coeso. A outro nível, uma análise qualitativa complementar destas interacções mostrou que, tanto o número de oportunidades de aprendizagem criadas, como a qualidade e quantidade de linguagem produzida são influenciadas por vários factores, nomeadamente o modo como os estudantes desempenham a tarefa, as decisões que tomam em zonas de transição interactiva e as relações afectivas entre os participantes. A principal conclusão do estudo é que não é a condição coesa do grupo como um todo, mas a natureza da relação entre os seus membros que completam a tarefa, que influencia a eficácia da interacção oral na aprendizagem.Este estudo contribui para a nossa compreensão do modo como os alunos singularizam o espaço de aprendizagem, ao mesmo tempo que destaca a natureza contextual do ensino da língua. Mostra ainda como interagem os indivíduos uns com os outros e com a tarefa, e como, no processo de interacção, o discurso muda a cada momento, devido à reacção dos alunos ao “aqui e agora” do ambiente da aula

Speech Recognition

Chapters in the first part of the book cover all the essential speech processing techniques for building robust, automatic speech recognition systems: the representation for speech signals and the methods for speech-features extraction, acoustic and language modeling, efficient algorithms for searching the hypothesis space, and multimodal approaches to speech recognition. The last part of the book is devoted to other speech processing applications that can use the information from automatic speech recognition for speaker identification and tracking, for prosody modeling in emotion-detection systems and in other speech processing applications that are able to operate in real-world environments, like mobile communication services and smart homes

PROCEEDING THE 2nd INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON LINGUISTICS (ISOL-2): Language and Civilization

ISOL is a biennial international seminar held by the Linguistics Graduate Program of Faculty of Humanity, Andalas University in collaboration with the Linguistic Society of Indonesia (MLI), Unand Chapter. ISOL aims to provide a discussion platform for linguists and language observers across Indonesia. Its main objective is to enhance the exchange of research and new approaches in language studies. The seminar is open to interested people from outside of Indonesia. The theme of the 2nd ISOL is Language and Civilization. Civilization is the process by which a society or place reaches an advanced stage of social development and organization. It is also defined as the society, culture, and way of life of a particular area. Over time, the word civilization has come to imply something beyond the organization. It refers to a particular shared way of thinking about the world as well as a reflection on that world in art, literature, drama and a host of other cultural happenings. Language is itself a social construct – a component of social reality. Thus, like all social constructs and conventions, it can be changed. A civilization is any complex state society which is characterized by urban development, social stratification, symbolic communication forms and a perceived separation from and domination over the natural environment. To advance civilization is to construct a new social reality which emerges through language. In other words, social reality is the operational expression of words and the meanings of them that society has agreed upon. Language is itself a social construct – a component of social reality. Thus, like all social constructs and conventions, it can be changed

An exploration of teaching and learning activities in mathematics flipped classrooms : A case study in an engineering program

Paper I is not available as a part of the dissertation due to the copyright. Author´s accepted manuscript of the paper is available in AURA as a separate file: https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2655384.This research project is a case-study of three consecutive cohorts of engineering students being subject to the pedagogical approach of flipped classroom (Bergmann & Sams, 2012). The study, which is qualitative and based on a naturalistic research paradigm (Moschkovich & Brenner, 2000), considers various aspects of mathematical learning when students are subject to this new form of learner-centred teaching (Stephan, 2014). Research on Flipped Classroom (FC) has increased substantially during the last decade. However, the bulk of studies consider mostly student satisfaction and performance comparisons between traditional lecture-based and FC teaching. As such, they provide little insight into the fundamental aspects of what makes the FC in tertiary mathematics education efficient or not. As such, there is a definite lack of research that provides qualitative socio-cultural studies of FC teaching and learning. The aim of the study was to address these shortcomings in the research field.publishedVersio

Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Technology in Mathematics Teaching ICTMT 12

Innovation, inclusion, sharing and diversity are some of the words that briefly and suitably characterize the ICTMT series of biennial international conferences – the International Conference on Technology in Mathematics Teaching. Being the twelfth of a series which began in Birmingham, UK, in 1993, under the influential enterprise of Professor Bert Waits from Ohio State University, this conference was held in Portugal for the first time. The 12th International Conference on Technology in Mathematics Teaching was hosted by the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the University of Algarve, in the city of Faro, from 24 to 27 June 2015, and was guided by the original spirit of its foundation. The integration of digital technologies in mathematics education across school levels and countries, from primary to tertiary education, together with the understanding of the phenomena involved in the teaching and learning of mathematics in technological environments have always been driving forces in the transformation of pedagogical practices. The possibility of joining at an international conference a wide diversity of participants, including school mathematics teachers, lecturers, mathematicians, mathematics educators and researchers, software designers, and curriculum developers, is one facet that makes this conference rather unique. At the same time, it seeks to foster the sharing of ideas, experiences, projects and studies while providing opportunities to try-out and assess tools or didactical proposals during times of hands-on work. The ICTMT 12 had this same ambition, when embracing and welcoming just over 120 delegates who actively and enthusiastically contributed to a very packed program of scientific proposals and sessions on various topics

Never an Alibi: The Dialogical Museum

https://digitalmaine.com/academic/1006/thumbnail.jp