Introduction: Multimodal interaction

That human social interaction involves the intertwined cooperation of different modalities is uncontroversial. Researchers in several allied fields have, however, only recently begun to document the precise ways in which talk, gesture, gaze, and aspects of the material surround are brought together to form coherent courses of action. The papers in this volume are attempts to develop this line of inquiry. Although the authors draw on a range of analytic, theoretical, and methodological traditions (conversation analysis, ethnography, distributed cognition, and workplace studies), all are concerned to explore and illuminate the inherently multimodal character of social interaction. Recent studies, including those collected in this volume, suggest that different modalities work together not only to elaborate the semantic content of talk but also to constitute coherent courses of action. In this introduction we present evidence for this position. We begin by reviewing some select literature focusing primarily on communicative functions and interactive organizations of specific modalities before turning to consider the integration of distinct modalities in interaction

Lilia, A Showcase for Fast Bootstrap of Conversation-Like Dialogues Based on a Goal-Oriented System

International audienceRecently many works have proposed to cast human-machine interaction in a sentence generation scheme. Neural networks models can learn how to generate a probable sentence based on the user's statement along with a partial view of the dialogue history. While appealing to some extent, these approaches require huge training sets of general-purpose data and lack a principled way to intertwine language generation with information retrieval from back-end resources to fuel the dialogue with actualised and precise knowledge. As a practical alternative, in this paper, we present Lilia, a showcase for fast bootstrap of conversation-like dialogues based on a goal-oriented system. First, a comparison of goal-oriented and conversational system features is led, then a conversion process is described for the fast bootstrap of a new system, finalised with an on-line training of the system's main components. Lilia is dedicated to a chitchat task, where speakers exchange viewpoints on a displayed image while trying collaboratively to derive its author's intention. Evaluations with user trials showed its efficiency in a realistic setup

On the potential of phonetic analysis to distinguish between people with epilepsy and non-epileptic seizures

A body of research has shown that there are linguistic differences in the way people with epilepsy talk about their seizures when compared to those with non-epileptic seizures. We extend this line of research by presenting the results of a phonetic analysis comparing speech samples from people with a confirmed diagnosis of epilepsy (7 patients), to those with a confirmed diagnosis of non-epileptic seizures (8 patients). Variables considered include features of pitch, intensity, duration and pausing in their responses to questions from a neurologist during medical history-taking. We find only limited evidence of differences between the two diagnostic groups (epilepsy vs. non-epileptic seizures). We discuss possible reasons for this lack of evidence

Deferring the decision point : Treatment assertions in neurology outpatient consultations

Recommendations can be implied by asserting some generalisation about a treatment’s benefit without overtly directing the patient to take it. Focusing on a collection of assertions in UK neurology consultations, this paper shows that these are overwhelmingly receipted as “merely” doing informing and argues that this is made possible by their ambiguous design: their relatively depersonalised formats convey that the neurologist is simply telling the patient what’s available, but the link made between the treatment and the patient’s condition implies that it will be of benefit. Thus, assertions, while stopping short of telling the patient what to do, are hearable as recommendation relevant. This delicates balance leaves it up to the patient to respond either to the implied or on-record action (recommending vs. informing). When treated as “merely” doing informing, assertions defer the decision point until the neurologist has done something more. Three main interactional functions of this are identified as follows: (i) indicating the existence of a solution to a concern, without making a decision relevant next; (ii) orienting to the patient’s right to choose; and (iii) making “cautious” recommendations

The power of suggestion: examining the impact of presence or absence of shared first language in the antenatal clinic

© 2019 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness Healthcare encounters involving participants from diverse linguistic backgrounds are becoming more common due to the globalisation of health care and increasing migration levels. Research suggests that this diversity has a significant impact on health outcomes; however less is known about how it is managed in the actual consultation process. This article presents an analysis of antenatal screening consultations video recorded in Hong Kong, using conversation analysis. We consider how the use of a second or subsequent language impacts on these consultations, and on discussions and decisions about further action. The presence or absence of shared first language did not appear to affect the extent to which particular courses of action were promoted or recommended. Recommendations were a common occurrence across consultations with and without shared first language. However, we argue that the routine use of recommendations can be consequential, as second language speakers may have more limited resources to interrogate or contest these. This finding has implications for the ability for professionals to maximise patient involvement in decision-making

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