Lexical Entrainment in Human-Robot Interaction: - Can Robots Entrain Human Vocabulary? -

Abstract-A communication robot must recognize a referred-to object to support us in daily life. However, using our wide human vocabulary, we often refer to objects in terms that are incomprehensible to the robot. This paper focuses on lexical entrainment to solve this problem. Lexical entrainment is the phenomenon of people tending to adopt the terms of their interlocutor. While this has been well studied in human-computer interaction, few published papers have approached it in human-robot interaction. To investigate how lexical entrainment occurs in human-robot interaction, we conduct experiments where people instruct the robot to move objects. Our results show that two types of lexical entrainment occur in human-robot interaction. We also discuss the effects of the state of objects on lexical entrainment. Finally, we developed a test bed system for recognizing a referred-to object on the basis of knowledge from our experiments

A Study on the Characteristics of Location and Development Contents in Large-Scale Urban Parks in Greater Tokyo and Osaka

Development process of large-scale urban parks since the establishment of the Urban Park Law in 1956 is outlined in Greater Tokyo and Osaka, wherein greenbelt zoning was unsuccessfully applied. Urban parks with the area of 10ha or more are investigated regarding methods of park construction, geomorpholic location and the contents of park development. For each category, trends of park developments are studied. Through this study, the following findings are obtained: 1) There are two types of park construction, park construction only for the park and that associated with the other development plan. 2) In both areas, the parks on hilly lands have been increasing and that on lowlands decreasing. 3) The conservational ways of park developments increase, particularly on hilly lands and the transforming way increased in riverside area