FREE-FLOW DIALOG MANAGEMENT USING FORMS

Abstract

This paper describes a task oriented, mixed initiative dialog manager. To perform a task according to a user's request, the dialog manager needs many pieces of information. It may have to query the user for missing information, clarify ambiguous information, inherit information from context, and confirm information before performing critical tasks. We describe a form-based framework for free-flow dialog management that deals with these issues. Here, a form corresponds to a specific task in the domain. To allow users to address any task any time, the dialog manager determines the best form that corresponds to the user's intention on every turn. Our dialog manager associates a score to each form as a measure of matching between the form and the user's input. Then the best scoring form corresponds to user's intention.