On this and the following pages, we give a tour of one of the main research directions at the department of Speech, Music and Hearing: human-like behaviour in spoken dialogue systems.
We and others have found it fruitful to assume that users, when interacting with spoken dialogue systems, perceive the systems and their actions metaphorically.
Common metaphors include the human metaphor and the interface metaphor (cf. Edlund, Heldner, & Gustafson, 2006, Hjalmarsson, 2010).
In the interface metaphor, the spoken dialogue system is perceived as a machine interface - often but not always a computer interface.
Speech is used to accomplish what would have otherwise been accomplished by some other means of input, such as a keyboard or a mouse.
In the human metaphor, on the other hand, the computer is perceived as a creature (or even a person) with human-like conversational abilities, and speech is not a substitute or one of many alternatives, but rather the primary means of communicating with this creature.
