The DOI matches its Crossref record; 1 of the 1 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Using prosodic clues to decide when to produce back-channel utterances
Abstract
Back-channel feedback is required in order to build spoken dialog systems that are responsive. This paper reports a model of back-channel feedback in Japanese dialog. It turns out that a low pitch region is a good clue that the speaker is ready for back-channel feedback. A rule based on this fact matches corpus data on respondents' production of back-channel feedback. A system based on this rule meets the expectations of live speakers, sometimes well enough to fool them into thinking they are conversing with a human.
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In the citing paper
“Ward (1996) investigated a corpus of Japanese conversations to find predictive cues for backchannels and found that backchannels tended to come about 200 ms after a region of low pitch.”
From Modeling Feedback in Interaction With Conversational Agents—A Review (2022) · cites this paper as Ward, 1996
In the citing paper
“The hope is that conversational agents providing feedback result in more pleasant (Ward, 1996) and more engaging user-experiences, and in an increase in acceptance (Cathcart et al., 2003).”
From Modeling Feedback in Interaction With Conversational Agents—A Review (2022) · cites this paper as Ward, 1996
Citations
Cites
A robust layered control system for a mobile robot
Brooks, R. (1986) · IEEE Journal on Robotics and Automation · doi:10.1109/jra.1986.1087032 · Cited by 7,799
Cited by
Koiso, H., Horiuchi, Y., Tutiya, S., Ichikawa, A., & Den, Y. (1998) · Language and Speech · doi:10.1177/002383099804100404 · Cited by 272
Modeling embodied feedback with virtual humans,
Kopp, S., Allwood, J., Grammer, K., Ahlsen, E., & Stocksmeier, T. (2008) · Lecture Notes in Computer Science · doi:10.1007/978-3-540-79037-2_2 · Cited by 71
Modeling Feedback in Interaction With Conversational Agents—A Review
Axelsson, A., Buschmeier, H., & Skantze, G. (2022) · Frontiers in Computer Science · doi:10.3389/fcomp.2022.744574 · Cited by 45
A Survey of Listener Behavior and Listener Models for Embodied Conversational Agents
Bevacqua, E. (2013) · Coverbal Synchrony in Human-Machine Interaction · doi:10.1201/b15477-11 · Cited by 4
Turn-Taking Modelling in Conversational Systems: A Review of Recent Advances
Patamia, R. A., Dinh, H. P. T., Liu, M., & Cosgun, A. (2025) · Technologies · doi:10.3390/technologies13120591 · Cited by 1
Metadata
- Authors
- Ward, N.
- Affiliations
- The University of Tokyo (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Ward, Nigel
- ORCID
- Ward, Nigel
- Venue
- 4th International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP 1996)
- Publisher
- ISCA
- Published
- 1996-10-03
- Volume
- 3
- Pages
- 1728-1731
- OpenAlex
- W2170983113
- Cited by
- 62
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 4.26
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP) (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Speech and dialogue systems
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Speech Recognition and Synthesis
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies
- Keywords
- prosody, pitch, spoken dialogue systems, human-likeness, conversational turn-taking
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Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
