Referring to Objects with Spoken and Haptic Modalities

The gesture input modality considered in multimodal dialogue systems is mainly reduced to pointing or manipulating actions. With an approach based on the spontaneous character of the communication, the treatment of such actions involves many processes. Without any constraints, the user may use gesture in association with speech, and may exploit the visual context peculiarities, guiding his articulation of gesture trajectories and his choices of words. The semantic interpretation of multimodal utterances also becomes a complex problem, taking into account varieties of referring expressions, varieties of gestural trajectories, structural parameters from the visual context, and also directives from a specific task. Following the spontaneous approach, we propose to give the maximal understanding capabilities to dialogue systems, to ensure that various interaction modes must be taken into account. Considering the development of haptic sense devices (as PHANToM) which increase the capabilities of sensations, particularly tactile and kinesthetic ones, we propose to explore a new domain of research concerning the integration of haptic gesture into multimodal dialogue systems, in terms of its possible associations with speech for objects reference and manipulation. We focus in this paper on the compatibility between haptic gesture and multimodal reference models, and on the consequences of processing this new modality on intelligent system architectures, which is not yet enough studied from a semantic point of view

Context-based multimodal interpretation : an integrated approach to multimodal fusion and discourse processing

This thesis is concerned with the context-based interpretation of verbal and nonverbal contributions to interactions in multimodal multiparty dialogue systems. On the basis of a detailed analysis of context-dependent multimodal discourse phenomena, a comprehensive context model is developed. This context model supports the resolution of a variety of referring and elliptical expressions as well as the processing and reactive generation of turn-taking signals and the identification of the intended addressee(s) of a contribution. A major goal of this thesis is the development of a generic component for multimodal fusion and discourse processing. Based on the integration of this component into three distinct multimodal dialogue systems, the generic applicability of the approach is shown.Diese Dissertation befasst sich mit der kontextbasierten Interpretation von verbalen und nonverbalen Gesprächsbeiträgen im Rahmen von multimodalen Dialogsystemen. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wird, basierend auf einer detaillierten Analyse multimodaler Diskursphänomene, ein umfassendes Modell des Gesprächskontextes erarbeitet. Dieses Modell soll sowohl die Verarbeitung einer Vielzahl von referentiellen und elliptischen Ausdrücken, als auch die Erzeugung reaktiver Aktionen wie sie für den Sprecherwechsel benötigt werden unterstützen. Ein zentrales Ziel dieser Arbeit ist die Entwicklung einer generischen Komponente zur multimodalen Fusion und Diskursverarbeitung. Anhand der Integration dieser Komponente in drei unterschiedliche Dialogsysteme soll der generische Charakter dieser Komponente gezeigt werden