Reducing driver distraction in spoken dialogue

A method for reducing user situation non-awareness associated with an automated dialogue system, the method comprising:

• receiving, by a processor, a user anticipated workload parameter;
• responsively to the user anticipated workload parameter, controlling the automated dialogue system to perform a system dialogue turn that reduces the user workload associated with interacting with the automated dialogue system, wherein the system dialogue turn includes a dialogue act selected from a group consisting of:
• a workload-reducing dialogue act;
• and
• a regular dialogue act modified by a workload-reducing modification;
• detecting a user situation non-awareness level for a plurality of dialogues stored in a database;
• responsive to detecting the user situation non-awareness level, computing a penalty value for assessing a dialogue quality according to at least the user situation non-awareness;
• and
• computing a dialogue policy for a controller of the automated dialogue system according to the database.

A dialogue system for reducing user distraction associated with interaction with automated dialogue, the system comprising:

• a dialogue control unit;
• a storage device containing a dialogue policy;
• a workload estimation unit operative to:
• receive a workload parameter indicative of a user workload;
• compute a workload estimate;
• input the workload estimate into the dialogue control unit;
• perform a system dialogue turn that reduces the user workload associated with interacting with the automated dialogue system, wherein the system dialogue turn includes a dialogue act selected from a group consisting of:
• a workload-reducing dialogue act;
• and
• a regular dialogue act modified by a workload-reducing dialogue modification;
• detect a user distraction level for a plurality of dialogues;
• responsive to detecting the user distraction level, compute a penalty value for assessing a dialogue quality according to at least the user distraction level for a dialogue of the plurality of dialogues;
• store the penalty value in a database which includes the plurality of dialogues;
• and
• compute a dialogue policy for a controller of the automated dialogue system according to the database.

A dialogue system for reducing user situation non-awareness associated with interaction with automated dialogue, the system comprising:

• a dialogue control unit;
• a storage device containing a dialogue policy;
• an anticipated workload estimation unit operative to:
• receive an anticipated workload parameter indicative of an anticipated user workload;
• compute an anticipated workload estimate;
• input the anticipated workload estimate into the dialogue control unit;
• perform a system dialogue turn that reduces the user workload associated with interacting with the automated dialogue system, wherein the system dialogue turn includes a dialogue act selected from a group consisting of:
• a workload-reducing dialogue act;
• and
• a regular dialogue act modified by a workload-reducing modification;
• detect the user situation non-awareness level for a plurality of dialogues stored in a database;
• responsive to detecting the user situation non-awareness level, compute a penalty value for assessing a dialogue quality according to at least the user situation non-awareness;
• and
• compute a dialogue policy for the dialogue control unit according to the database.