Optimizing Successful Turn-taking in Spoken Dialog Systems

Abstract

A major challenge in the design of spoken dialog systems is determining how long a system should wait — or time-out — before providing some instruction to a caller who is silent in response to a question. This study examined the impact that various time-out values had on the responses to three different question types. The results show that time-out values of 2 and 2.5 seconds caused the most instances of system and caller talking at the same time. The data also shows that these turn-taking issues have an effect on subsequent interactions between system and caller.