Conversational Natural Language interaction for Place-related Knowledge Acquisition

We focus on the problems of using Natural Language interaction to support pedestrians in their place-related knowledge acquisition. Our case study for this discussion is a smartphone-based Natural Language interface that allows users to acquire spatial and cultural knowledge of a city. The framework consists of a spoken dialogue-based information system and a smartphone client. The system is novel in combining geographic information system (GIS) modules such as a visibility engine with a question-answering (QA) system. Users can use the smartphone client to engage in a variety of interleaved conversations such as navigating from A to B, using the QA functionality to learn more about points of interest (PoI) nearby, and searching for amenities and tourist attractions. This system explores a variety of research questions involving Natural Language interaction for acquisition of knowledge about space and place.