Alignment in Communication: Towards a new theory of communication

242 Pages·2013·4.99 MB·English

by  Ipke Wachsmuth

Alignment in Communication
Advances in Interaction Studies (AIS)
Advances in Interaction Studies (AIS) provides a forum for researchers to present
excellent scholarly work in a variety of disciplines relevant to the advancement
of knowledge in the field of interaction studies. The book series accompanies the
journal Interaction Studies: Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and
Artificial Systems.
The book series allows the presentation of research in the forms of monographs or
edited collections of peer-reviewed material in English.
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Editors
Kerstin Dautenhahn Angelo Cangelosi
The University of Hertfordshire University of Plymouth
Editorial Board
Henrik Christensen Chrystopher L. Nehaniv
Georgia Institute of Technology University of Hertfordshire
Harold Gouzoules Stefano Nolfi
Emory University CNR, Rome
Takayuki Kanda Pierre-Yves Oudeyer
ATR, Kyoto INRIA, Bordeaux
Tetsuro Matsuzawa Irene M. Pepperberg
Kyoto University Harvard University & Brandeis University
Giorgio Metta Kerstin Severinson Eklundh
IIT, Genoa KTH, Stockholm
Adam Miklosi Stefan Wermter
Eötvös Loránd University University of Hamburg
Robert W. Mitchell
Eastern Kentucky University
Volume 6
Alignment in Communication. Towards a new theory of communication
Edited by Ipke Wachsmuth, Jan de Ruiter, Petra Jaecks and Stefan Kopp
Alignment in Communication
Towards a new theory of communication
Edited by
Ipke Wachsmuth
Jan de Ruiter
Petra Jaecks
Stefan Kopp
Bielefeld University
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
CIP data is available from the Library of Congress.
Advances in Interaction Studies, issn 1879-873X ; v. 6
isbn 978 90 272 0460 8 (Hb ; alk. paper)
isbn 978 90 272 7103 7 (Eb)
© 2013 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Dedicated to Gert Rickheit †, initiator and co-founder of the Collaborative
Research Center “Alignment in Communication”

Table of contents
Introduction: Why a new theory of communication? 1
Ipke Wachsmuth, Jan de Ruiter, Petra Jaecks and Stefan Kopp
Methodological paradigms in interaction research 11
Jan de Ruiter
A multidimensional activity based approach to communication 33
Jens Allwood
On making syntax dynamic: The challenge of compound utterances
and the architecture of the grammar 5 7
Eleni Gregoromichelaki, Ruth Kempson, Christine Howes
and Arash Eshghi
Automatic and strategic alignment of co-verbal gestures in dialogue 8 7
Stefan Kopp and Kirsten Bergmann
Interaction phonology – A temporal co-ordination component enabling
representational alignment within a model of communication 109
Petra Wagner, Zofia Malisz, Benjamin Inden and Ipke Wachsmuth
Communication as moving target tracking: Dynamic Bayesian inference
with an action-perception-learning cycle 133
Byoung-Tak Zhang
Language variation and mutual adaptation in interactive communication:
Putting together psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives 149
Constanze Vorwerg
“The hand is no banana!” On communicating natural kind terms to a robot 167
Julia Peltason, Hannes Rieser and Sven Wachsmuth
 Alignment in Communication Towards a New Theory of Communication
Interactive alignment and prediction in dialogue 193
Simon Garrod and Martin J. Pickering
What is the link between emotional and communicative alignment
in interaction? 205
Petra Jaecks, Oliver Damm, Martina Hielscher-Fastabend,
Karoline Malchus, Prisca Stenneken and Britta Wrede
Index 225
Contributors 229
Introduction
Why a new theory of communication?
Ipke Wachsmuth, Jan de Ruiter, Petra Jaecks and Stefan Kopp
Alignment in Communication is the theme of a novel direction in
communication research, which focuses on interactive adaptation processes
assumed to be more or less automatic in humans. Originating from an
international workshop organized at Bielefeld’s Center for Interdisciplinary
Research (ZiF), the book presents cornerstones of a forming new theory of
communication, the ultimate purpose of which is to extend our knowledge
about cognitive processes in human communication, as well as creating a
foundation for natural multimodal dialogue in human-machine interaction. The
introduction chapter, in addition to giving a brief overview of the content of the
book, provides a definition of alignment in communication, justifies the need for
this new perspective, and outlines a general framework for alignment research.
1. Subject and motivation
Cooperation and coordination in communication and action have been major re-
search issues in the cognitive sciences and the study of artificial agents in recent
years. Started in July 2006, the Bielefeld Collaborative Research Center SFB 673
“Alignment in Communication”1 investigates special modes of coordination,
called alignment (Rickheit & Wachsmuth, 2008). Alignment refers to those inter-
active adaptation processes among agents that are assumed to be more or less au-
tomatic in humans and therefore do not involve explicit negotiation and control by
the participants. This approach thus emphasizes the role of automaticity and routi-
nization in bringing about similarity of mental representations at various levels
within and between interlocutors. Its scientific prospects are manifold: It promises
the prerequisites for the specification of cognitive mechanisms in intra- and inter-
personal coordination, and the generalization to domains like multimodal com-
munication and human-machine interaction.
1. http://www.sfb673.org