An evidential model for tracking initiative in collaborative dialogue interactions

In this paper, we argue for the need to distinguish between task initiative and dialogue initiative, and present an evidential model for tracking shif ts in both types of initiatives in collaborative dialogue interactions. Our model predicts the task and dialogue initiative holders for the next dialo gue turn based on the current initiative holders and the effect that observ ed cues have on changing them. Our evaluation across various corpora shows that the use of cues consistently provides significant improvement in the s ystem's prediction of task and dialogue initiative holders. Finally, we sho w how this initiative tracking model may be employed by a dialogue system t o enable the system to tailor its responses to user utterances based on app lication domain, system's role in the domain, dialogue history, and user ch aracteristics.