Efficiency and Effectiveness in Task-Oriented Dialogue: On Construction Repetition, Information Rate, and Task Success

Jun Sen Yee, Mario Giulianelli, Arabella J. Sinclair


Abstract
We investigate the roles that efficiency and effectiveness play in speakers’ repetition of shared word sequences, or constructions, in task-oriented dialogue. We find that repeating constructions has negative effects on information rate and positive effects on rate of delivery, that information rate managing strategies are predictive of task success, and that this varies by the communicative function of the constructions being repeated. More effective dialogue is characterised by greater levels of shared construction usage and more efficient task-related repetition; while task-agnostic repetition can seem redundant, it can serve important efficiency and effectiveness functions. Our results provide a nuanced picture of the importance of repetition and of developing a shared lexicon for both efficiency and effectiveness in task-oriented dialogue.
Anthology ID:
2024.lrec-main.494
Volume:
Proceedings of the 2024 Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-COLING 2024)
Month:
May
Year:
2024
Address:
Torino, Italia
Editors:
Nicoletta Calzolari, Min-Yen Kan, Veronique Hoste, Alessandro Lenci, Sakriani Sakti, Nianwen Xue
Venues:
LREC | COLING
SIG:
Publisher:
ELRA and ICCL
Note:
Pages:
5562–5577
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2024.lrec-main.494
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Jun Sen Yee, Mario Giulianelli, and Arabella J. Sinclair. 2024. Efficiency and Effectiveness in Task-Oriented Dialogue: On Construction Repetition, Information Rate, and Task Success. In Proceedings of the 2024 Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-COLING 2024), pages 5562–5577, Torino, Italia. ELRA and ICCL.
Cite (Informal):
Efficiency and Effectiveness in Task-Oriented Dialogue: On Construction Repetition, Information Rate, and Task Success (Yee et al., LREC-COLING 2024)
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PDF:
https://preview.aclanthology.org/nschneid-patch-4/2024.lrec-main.494.pdf