Mixed Initiative in a Spoken Dialogue System

Eli HagenIn this paper

we outline a data driven approach to mixed initiative dialogue in acoustic user interfaces to databases. We present the knowledge sources that our dialogue planning algorithm needs: the dialogue model

the dialogue history

and the application description. Further

we discuss how the notions of taking

keeping

giving

and relinquishing the turn are reflected in our approach and how to combine these notions with the knowledge sources in order to decide on an appropriate strategy for the dialogue and to achieve a mixed initiative type of dialogue in which the user is able take the initiative and change the direction of the dialogue.