Characterising Dimensions of Use for Designing Adaptive Dialogues for Human-Robot Communication

In this paper we provide a possible characterisation of user behaviour based on an analysis of a corpus of human-robot communication, collected by using the Wizard-of-Oz technique to elicit communicative behaviour. We distinguish between three general types of user behaviour: uniform user behaviour, idiosyncratic user behaviour and distinguishing user behaviour. We also present an analysis of user behaviour that can be characterized in terms of overall task organisation (i.e., interaction episodes) and behaviour that is intimately connected to communicative behaviour. We also discuss to what extent manipulation of objects to prepare the environment can be used to group users along the dimensions: task- vs. interaction-orientation and control vs. monitoring. Using this typology we discuss categorisation into four dimensions of use: directors, manipulators, pointers and players. To support these use dimensions we propose a set of adaptation foci (focus on feedback or action, and on proactive or reactive behaviour).