UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE
             COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM

                            presents

        "Spoken Language Processing: Where Do We Go from Here?


                      Prof. Roger K. Moore
           (Computer Science, University of Sheffield, UK)


                    14 March 2012  (Wednesday)
                            1 -2  pm


                  Hatfield, College Lane Campus
                      * * Room C152  * *

                  Everyone is Welcome to Attend

                  Refreshments will be available

Abstract:

Recent years have seen steady improvements in the quality and performance
of speech-based human-machine interaction driven by a significant
convergence in the methods and techniques employed.  Spoken language
processing has finally emerged from the research laboratory into the
real-world, and members of the general public now regularly encounter
talking and listening machines in their daily lives.  However, whilst
several niche markets have been established, there is a general consensus
that spoken language technology is still insufficiently robust for a
range of valuable applications, and that the capabilities of contemporary
spoken language systems continue to fall short of what users expect and
the market needs.

Of particular concern is that the quantity of training data required
to improve state-of-the-art systems seems to be growing exponentially.
Yet performance appears to be reaching an asymptote that is not only
well short of human performance, but which may also be inadequate
for many real-world applications.  This suggests that there may be a
fundamental flaw in the underlying architecture of contemporary systems,
and the future direction for research into spoken language processing
is currently uncertain.

This talk attempts to address these issues by stepping outside the
usual domains of speech science and technology, and instead drawing
inspiration from recent findings in the neurobiology of living systems.
It will be shown how these results point towards a novel architecture
for speech-based human-machine interaction - PREdictive SENsorimotor
Control and Emulation (PRESENCE) - that blurs the distinction between
the core components of a traditional spoken language dialogue system;
an architecture in which cooperative and communicative behaviour emerges
as a by-product of a model of interaction where the system has in mind
the needs and intentions of a user, and a user has in mind the needs
and intentions of the system.  The talk will conclude with examples of
current research that support the PRESENCE hypothesis.


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Hertfordshire Computer Science Research Colloquium
http://cs-colloq.stca.herts.ac.uk