Probabilistic simulation of human-machine dialogues

The field of spoken dialogue systems has developed rapidly. However, optimisation, evaluation and rapid development of systems remain problematic. This paper describes a method of producing a probabilistic simulation of mixed initiative dialogue with recognition and understanding errors. Both user behaviour and system errors are modelled using a data-driven approach, and the quality of the simulations are evaluated by comparing them to real human-machine dialogues. The simulation system can be used to perform rapid evaluations of prototype systems, thus aiding the development process. It is also envisaged that it will be used as a tool for automation of dialogue design.