Dialogue Skills Research Articles

Mind model for multimodal communicative creatures and humanoids

This paper presents a computational model of real - time task - oriented dialog skills . The model , termed Ymir, bridges multimodal perception and multimodal action and supports the creation of autonomous computer characters that afford full - duplex , real - time face - to - face interaction with a human . Ymir has been prototyped in software , and a humanoid created , called Gandalf, capable of fluid multimodal dialog . Ymir demonstrates several new ideas in the creation of communicative computer agents , including perceptual integration of multimodal events, distributed planning and decision making, an explicit handling of real time, and perceptuo-motor system layered and motor control with human characteristics. This paper describes the model's architecture and explains its main elements . Examples of implementation and performance are given , and the architecture's limitations and possibilities are discussed .

Running a workshop on clinical bedside teaching: a practical guide.

Clinical bedside teaching forms a major part of undergraduate medical education but clinicians rarely have training in teaching or access to educational experts. Outlined is a programme used by a clinician to run a workshop for colleagues and students using collaborative learning. The workshop begins with a reflection on current teaching practice. Having determined priorities in bedside teaching a session is replanned to take account of these. A tutor-led session on dialogue skills is followed by further sessions on planning the teaching of a whole firm. Problems related to assessment are briefly considered to conclude the workshop. Despite limitations such workshops can successfully circumvent the scarcity of educationalists in the clinical setting. The workshop material is offered to other clinicians wishing to run similar workshops for colleagues.