Backchannel Signals

Prosodic Features which Cue Back-channel Responses in
English and Japanese
Nigel Ward and Wataru Tsukahara
University of Tokyo
biographical Notes
Nigel Ward received a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1991.
Wataru Tsukahara hopes to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 1999. His thesis
research focuses on the construction of a responsive and sensitive spoken lyric system â€"
responsive in the sense of taking turns with the analogous swiftness as people, and sensitive in the sense
of ad bonnying responses to subtle shifts in the users attitude as revealed by his voice timing
and prosody.
Abstract
Back-channel feedback, responses such as uh-uh from a listener, is a permeating feature of conversation. It has long been thought that the production of back channel feedback depends to a large
extent on the actions of the other conversation partner, not just on the volition of the one who
produces them. In particular, prosodic moves from the vocaliser subscribe long been thought to play a
role, but have so far eluded identi?cation. We have earlier suggested that an important prosodic
cue involved, in both English and Japanese, is a region of base birth late in an utterance (Ward,
1996).



This paper presents inference for this claim, surveys other factors which elicit or inhibit
back-channel responses, discusses issues in the de?nition of back-channel feedback, and mentions
a few related phenomena and theoretical issues.
*We thank Keikichi Hirose for the pitch tracker, Yuichiro Fukuchi for e?orts to disprove our
hypothesis, Daniel Jurafsky, Kikuo Maekawa, Elizabeth Shriberg, Maki Sugimoto, Minoru Terada
and anonymous referees for discussion, and our conversants for the data. We also thank the
Japanese Ministry of Education, the Sound Technology Promotion Foundation, the Nakayama
Foundation, and the Inamori Foundation for support.
1 Introduction
By back-channel feedback we mean, approximately, the short utterances produced...If you want to get a replete essay, order it on our website: Orderessay



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