"How Was Your Weekend?" A Generative Model of Phatic Conversation
This work addresses the challenge of generating socially appropriate conversations for potential use in social skills training tools, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing computational models of conversation.
The authors tackled the problem of modeling phatic conversation by proposing a computational model that follows or breaks social rules, and they demonstrated its application in the Experimental Social Tutor (EST) for social skills training, with a pilot study showing the model can produce conversations adhering to social norms.
Unspoken social rules, such as those that govern choosing a proper discussion topic and when to change discussion topics, guide conversational behaviors. We propose a computational model of conversation that can follow or break such rules, with participant agents that respond accordingly. Additionally, we demonstrate an application of the model: the Experimental Social Tutor (EST), a first step toward a social skills training tool that generates human-readable conversation and a conversational guideline at each point in the dialogue. Finally, we discuss the design and results of a pilot study evaluating the EST. Results show that our model is capable of producing conversations that follow social norms.