Spoken Dialogue Technology - Towards the Conversational User Interface

Spoken Dialogue Technology provides extensive coverage of spoken dialogue systems, ranging from the theoretical underpinnings of the study of dialogue through to a detailed look at a number of well-established methods and tools for developing spoken dialogue systems. The book enables students and practitioners to design and test dialogue systems using several available development environments and languages, including the CSLU toolkit, VoiceXML, SALT, and XHTML+ voice. This practical orientation is usually available otherwise only in reference manuals supplied with software development kits. The latest research in spoken dialogue systems is presented along with extensive coverage of the most relevant theoretical issues and a critical evaluation of current research prototypes. A dedicated web site containing supplementary materials, code, links to resources will enable readers to develop and test their own systems (). Previously such materials have been difficult to track down, available only on a range of disparate web sites and this web site provides a unique and useful reference source which will prove invaluable.

List of contents

Who Should Read This Book?.- How This Book Is Organised.- I. Background to Spoken Dialogue Technology.- 1. Talking with Computers: Fact or Fiction?.- 2. Spoken Dialogue Applications: Research Directions and Commercial Deployment.- 3. Understanding Dialogue.- 4. Components of a Spoken Dialogue System - Speech Input and Output.- 5. Dialogue Management.- II. Developing Spoken Dialogue Applications.- 6. Dialogue Engineering: The Dialogue Systems Development Lifecycle.- 7. Developing a Spoken Dialogue System Using the CSLU Toolkit.- 8. Developing Multimodal Dialogue Systems Using the CSLU Toolkit.- 9. Developing a Directed Dialogue System Using VoiceXML.- 10. More Advanced VoiceXML.- 11. Multimodal Web-based Dialogue: XHTML + Voice and SALT.- III. Advanced Applications.- 12. Advanced Dialogue Systems: Some Cases Studies.- 13. Research Topics in Spoken Dialogue Technology.- 14. Future Directions: The Way Ahead.- Appendixes.- Appendix 1. Grammar Formats.- The XML and ABNF Grammar Formats.- Appendix 2. The CSLU Toolkit and Related Software for.- Chapters 7 and 8.- CSLU Toolkit.- TclODBC.- Setting Up a Data Source (ODBC).- Appendix 3. Software for Chapters 9 and 10.- Downloading the IBM WebSphere VoiceServer SDK.- Downloading and Installing Apache Tomcat.- Java Server Pages (JSP).- Appendix 4. Software for Chapter 11. IBM Multimodal Tools and Microsoft.NET Speech SDK.- IBM Multimodal Tools.- Microsoft .NET Speech SDK.- Appendix 5. Spoken Dialogue Technology: Projects and Links.- Appendix 6. Spoken Dialogue Technology: Toolkits and Resources Toolkits and Resources for Spoken Dialogue Technology.- Web Sites for Hosted VoiceXML Applications.- References.

Summary

Spoken Dialogue Technology provides extensive coverage of spoken dialogue systems, ranging from the theoretical underpinnings of the study of dialogue through to a detailed look at a number of well-established methods and tools for developing spoken dialogue systems. The book enables students and practitioners to design and test dialogue systems using several available development environments and languages, including the CSLU toolkit, VoiceXML, SALT, and XHTML+ voice. This practical orientation is usually available otherwise only in reference manuals supplied with software development kits. The latest research in spoken dialogue systems is presented along with extensive coverage of the most relevant theoretical issues and a critical evaluation of current research prototypes. A dedicated web site containing supplementary materials, code, links to resources will enable readers to develop and test their own systems (). Previously such materials have been difficult to track down, available only on a range of disparate web sites and this web site provides a unique and useful reference source which will prove invaluable.

Additional text

From the reviews:
"McTear’s book provides both a very recommendable entry point for novices or students who want to become familiar with spoken dialogue systems and a good reference manual for practitioners and researchers. The book is attractively presented and structured in a well-thought-out way. It is clearly written and easily understandable. The large number of examples given in the text introduce some variety to the topics." (Johannes Pittermann, Computational Linguistics, Vol. 31 (3), 2005)

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From the reviews:

"McTear's book provides both a very recommendable entry point for novices or students who want to become familiar with spoken dialogue systems and a good reference manual for practitioners and researchers. The book is attractively presented and structured in a well-thought-out way. It is clearly written and easily understandable. The large number of examples given in the text introduce some variety to the topics." (Johannes Pittermann, Computational Linguistics, Vol. 31 (3), 2005)

Product details

• Authors: Michael McTear, Michael F McTear, Michael F. McTear
• Assisted by: T.V. Raman (Foreword)
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 17.09.2004
• EAN: 9781852336721
• ISBN: 978-1-85233-672-1
• No. of pages: 432
• Dimensions: 157 mm x 234 mm x 25 mm
• Weight: 636 g
• Illustrations: XII, 432 p. 58 illus.
• Subject: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > IT, data processing > IT