The Chatbot Repair Tango

<a href="https://embed.stanford.edu/iframe/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpurl.stanford.edu%2Fnv755gw7179" class="su-underline">Show Content</a>

Abstract/Contents

Abstract: Miscommunication occurs often in conversation. Humans employ various repair strategies to resolve miscommunications that occur in human-to-human speech, in what is called “conversational repair”. However, most chatbots currently in use either do not engage in repair at all, or conduct repair in ways that are, to a human speaker, clumsy and unnatural. This unnatural repair may lead to negative user experiences. This thesis draws on research into users’ experience of bots and conversational repair to explore the types of miscommunication, and possible repair strategies, that may occur between a task-oriented survey chatbot and a user. I find that errors in misunderstanding and repetition are common for medical survey chatbots, but that the first difficult key step for the chatbot is to notice that an error has occurred. From there, I identify repair strategies that are most ‘natural’ in conversation, including previously researched techniques such as “Confirmation”, along with new techniques such as “Simplification” and “Sense-Making”, in the hopes of building chatbots that will be able to have more positive interactions with users. This naturalistic repair, where a patient and the chatbot are able to continue a conversation naturally and fluidly in a way that is metaphorically similar to a tango, is key to improving user experience with chatbots.

Type of resource	text
Date created	June 2021

Author	Yang, Anna Christy
Degree granting institution	Stanford University, Department of Symbolic Systems
Primary advisor	Bernstein, Michael
Advisor	Shrager, Jeff

Subject	Artificial Intelligence
Subject	Chatbot
Subject	Conversational Agent
Subject	Conversational Repair
Subject	Human Computer Interaction
Subject	Intelligent Assistant
Subject	Natural Language Interfaces
Subject	Pragmatics
Subject	Symbolic Systems
Subject	SymSys
Genre	Thesis

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/nv755gw7179

Use and reproduction: User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

Preferred Citation: Yang, Anna Christy. (2021). The Chatbot Repair Tango. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/nv755gw7179

Master's Theses, Symbolic Systems Program, Stanford University

Loading usage metrics...