Conversation and behavior games in the pragmatics of dialogue

In this article we present the bases for a computational theory of the cognitive processes underlying human communication. The core of the article is devoted to the analysis of the phases in which the process of comprehension of a communicative act can be logically divided: (1) literal meaning, where the reconstruction of the mental states literally expressed by the actor takes place; (2) speaker’s meaning. where the partner reconstructs the communicative intentions of the actor; (3) communicative effect, where the partner possibly modifies his own beliefs and intentions; (4) reaction, where the intentions for the generation of the response are produced: and (5) response, where an overt response is constructed. The model appears to be compatible with relevant facts about human behavior. Our hypothesis is that, through communication, on actor tries to exploit the motivational structures of a partner so that the desired goal is generated. A second point is that social behavior requires that cooperation be maintained at some level. In the case of communication, cooperation is, in general, pursued even when the partner does not adhere to the actor’s goals, and therefore no cooperation occurs at the behavioral level. This important distinction is reflected in the two kinds of games we introduce to account for communication. The main concept implied in communication is that two agents overtly reach a situation of shared mental states. Our model deols with sharedness through two primitives: shared beliefs and communicative intentions

Towards a Model of the Interplay of Mentalizing and Mirroring in Embodied Communication

Kahl S, Kopp S. Towards a Model of the Interplay of Mentalizing and Mirroring in Embodied Communication. In: Airenti G, Bara BG, Sandini G, eds. Proceedings of the EuroAsianPacific Joint Conference on Cognitive Science. CEUR Workshop Proceedings. Vol 1419. CEUR-WS.org; 2015: 300-305

Visual gender cues elicit agent expectations: different mismatches in situated language comprehension

Rodriguez A, Burigo M, Knoeferle P. Visual gender cues elicit agent expectations: different mismatches in situated language comprehension. In: Airenti G, Bara BG, Sandini G, eds. Proceedings of the EuroAsianPacific Joint Conference on Cognitive Science (EAPCogSci 2015). CEUR Workshop Proceedings. Vol 1419. Aachen; 2015: 234-239

Failures, exploitations and deceits in communication

In this paper we sketch the general lines of a model of an elementary interchange in a dialogue, and concentrate on the analysis of the dialogue failures and exploitations the model can account for, as well as on deceitful uses of communication and non-expressive uses of language. We show that our model of standard communication can explain non-standard uses of language without special adaptation. In this way we can account for a variety of linguistic phenomena which are often neglected in formal treatments of dialogue, and provide a first validation of the knowledge structures and inference processes assumed in the model

Planning perlocutionary acts

We suggest a model of perlocutionary acts in order to explain how an actor plans speech acts to ob tain a response from a partner. We introduce two knowledge structures, namely games and contracts, which are used together with themes by the mental processes underlying perlocutionary acts. We present our model through the discussion of a paradigmatic example; in particular we focus on the problem of shifting from the wants of the actor to the wants of the partner. Our analysis is developed at different levels of detail through the identification of CAUSE-TO-WANT, CONVINCE and REQUEST actions. Eventually, we discuss some theoretica] implications of our approach to perlocution

Thespian: Modeling socially normative behavior in a decisiontheoretic framework

Abstract. To facilitate lifelike conversations with the human players in interactive dramas, virtual characters should follow similar conversational norms as those that govern human-human conversations. In this paper, we present a model of conversational norms in a decision-theoretic framework. This model is employed in the Thespian interactive drama system. In Thespian, characters have explicit goals of following norms, in addition to their other personal goals, and use a unified decision-theoretic framework to reason about conflicts among these goals. Different characters can weigh their goals in different ways and therefore have different behaviors. We discuss the model of conversational norms in Thespian. We also present preliminary experiments on modeling various kinds of characters using this model.