THE MECHANICS OF HUMAN CONVERSATION Matthew ProbertGENERAL
OVERVIEW:Conversation is the continual reaction to the receipt of
language based stimuli by a subject. These language stimuli may
take the form of: spoken words and sounds such as normally
associated with conversation; written words and symbols in teletype
and computer based communication; body language as with the
movements and symbols created with the body. Upon receipt of
symbols and sounds the subject's perception processes recognise
these as "language", although they may not have been intended as
such and this is an important point. It is important to realise
that a subject when in an interactive situation with another
subject is continually receiving visual, auditory and tactile signs
from the other subject. These signs are continually being processed
by the perception process and a guess is made as to their meaning.
This guess is rarely accurate. The guessing process is comprised of
two indistinct phases:1) A very quick, spontaneous response system
very quickly searches a sub- set memory store for matching
words/phrases. Such as the reaction to signs that are believed to
be greetings. A subject receives the sign "hello" and responds
immediately with the appropriate response, in England that might be
a reciprocal "hello" back to the originator.2) A slow, considered
analytic search of the subject's entire memory store takes place
even while the first phase is occuring. This analysis or "thinking"
process helps to improve the accuracy of the guess made as to the
meaning of the received sign. Upon receipt of new signs, this
process may wander to analyse a new sign or may simply give-up and
work on something else or lie dormant.Before a response can be made
or an action taken, the details of the response or action must be
formulated within the mind. This formulation takes place in an area
I call the "response holding area". This area is in turn fed by an
area of dynamic short-term memory that holds a small amount of data
related to the last conversation piece. To react the subject
retrieves from the response holding area the response and may or
may not analyse this proposed response before either putting it
into action, or discounting it and attempting to formulate a new
course of action. Should this process of formulation, analysis and
discounting take place several times in an apparently endless cycle
we have materialisation of the situation known as confusion. This
confusion cycle affects the analysis and retrieval of other data
and the subject becomes disorientated and frightened. The process
of analysis, fetching data from the long-term memory, comparing it
with the data held in the short-term memory and comparing the
results with memories of simular situations fetched from the
long-term memory requires effort by the subject. The longer this
process continues, the more effort is required and in turn this
causes pain. This may be seen manifesting itself in situations
where two participants are conversing. One participant is providing
the other participant with unexpected symbols, perhaps words that
are unknown to him. After a short while the participant who is
having difficulty in understanding will abort the interaction.
Unexpected stimuli can also cause spontaneous emotional reactions;
amusement, anger, bemusement or fear. Consider the reactions to the
receipt of significant, and yet unexpected news. The process of
analysis can be clearly detected as the recipient remains silent
and motionless for a time, trying desperately to understand the
stimuli and to collate all known relevant facts from the long-term
memory. STIMULI ------> PERCEPTION ------> REACTION Fig 1.
Basic System of ConversationFig 2 illustrates the response process
to a perceived stimuli. I stress again "perceived" stimuli, as
misunderstandings are very common during human interaction.
+------------------+ | | | \|/ PS ----> STM ----> FR ---->
ROK ----> REACTION /|\ | | | | | | | | LTM ---------+ Fig 2.
ResponseKey to Fig 2:PS Perceived stimuliSTM Short-term memoryFR
Formulated ResponseROK Response okay analysis processLTM Long-term
memoryConsider a typical scenario containing two imaginary
participants; Fred and John. Both are English men in their
mid-twenties, and have been interacting on a mutualy beneficial
level - they are friends - for some time. Both relax at a public
house called the Kings Head, where they frequently meet each other
although such meetings are not planned. It will not be unusual then
for Fred to enter the Kings Head pub on a Thursday evening at
around 8 pm and to meet John standing at the bar. Upon observing
his friend, Fred will move towards John and instigate interaction
with a greeting, perhaps he will say "Alright John, how's it
going?" This is a common greeting among this type of person in the
South of England. The expected response is something along the
lines of "fine" or "okay". If however, Fred greets John with a new
greeting, perhaps "Hello", John may still perceive only the
greeting and respond with the first response extracted from the
closest part of memory that is the normal response to the expected
greeting of "Alright John, how's it going?", so John may reply,
"yeah fine Fred". If John is not currently engaged in any other
concious mental activity he may take the time to consider the
received stimuli, and respond in a more intelligent manner.
Spontaneous conversation makes use of short-term and close recall
memory. It is an effortless and therefore enjoyable process.
Examples include: Greetings - "Hello", "hello". "How are you?",
"I'm fine thankyou" Customer-assistant interactions in shops such
as; "Yes sir what would you like?", "I should like a pound of
sprouts please." Analytic conversation requires effort. It involves
searching the long-term memory and recalling data into the
short-term memory. The requirement on a degree of effort makes this
process less generally enjoyable. Although, many people do enjoy
the stimulation and the process of recall. To them it becomes a
challenge. A process of proving their ability and therefore of
receiving gratification and reassurance. A notable example of this
is debating where two individuals may be locked in conversational
combat that is as aggressive and fullfilling as any physical
combat. The active process of searching long-term memory varies
between individuals. Those which are proficient at it are thought
of as quick witted and sharp. The successful ad-liber is an
example. Stand-up comedians if they are to be successful must
develope the skill of recalling and developing responses very
quickly if they are to be successful in their vocation. During the
spring and summer months of 1994 I conducted an experiment into
conversation. Participants were invited to contact a computer
bulletin board service. The participants generally were familiar
with the phenomena of bulletin boards, which are a computer system
from which messages to other callers may be left, and computer
files exchanged. It is also common for conversations to take place
on-line between callers or a caller and the operator of the host
computer. This operator being known as a "systems operator". The
bulletin board in question was advertissed as a forum for
discussion into artificial intelligence. Participants were also
informed that the bulletin board would provide facilities for
conversing with computer personalities as well as the human
operator. However, the particpants were not informed when they
would be conversing with which. On some occassions they would
instigate a conversation and it would be carried out with the human
operator, and at other times a computer program would respond to
them. The computer programs used for the experiment were programmed
to simulate the type of spontaneous conversation that would be
expected to occur between two parties who could predict what the
other would say. When an unexpected stimuli was received by the
computer program, it would respond either by changing the subject,
or with a humourous indication of its confusion. While many
particpants realised after varying times that they were conversing
with a machine, more signifcant was the number of particpants who
frequently mistook the human operator for a machine. The computer
programs were frequently caught out by unexpected questions that
they had not been programmed to respond to, and as such they
responded in an incoherrent manner. This was detected by the more
experienced human callers quite quickly, although callers who had
never conversed with a machine before were still unaware that they
were not talking to a human. More often the speed at which the
computer typed, and the regularity of its typing speed (it's body
language) gave the human caller an indication as to the mechanical
nature than the responses. Therefore, when speaking to a human
operator with a similarly fast and uniform typing rate the
particpants mis-perceived the body language to be that of a
computer. From this we can see that conversation is not restricted
to word symbols. Inflexion in spoken conversation, typing speed in
teletype conversation and body movements in close contact
conversation all assist and hinder the perception process in
putting meaning to the received stimuli. THE ANALYSIS
PROCESS:Having discussed the general picture of conversation I
should like to turn attention to a more detailed look at the
analysis process that occurs. The process of analysis of language
is called "parsing" and the mechanisms used are called "parsers".
The two indistinct processes already mentioned may now be examined
in more detail. The first, the "spontaneous reaction" is very quick
analysis carried out by a mechanism called a "slot-and-frame
parser". +----------------+ | INPUT PHRASE | +-------|--------+ \|/
+----------+----------+ +----------->-------------+ COMPARE
INPUT PHRASE| | | WITH STORED PHRASES | | +-----------|---------+ |
\|/ | +--+ +--+---+ +---+ | |NO+----------------+YES| | +|-+
+------+ +-|-+/|\ \|/ \|/ | | +------+-------+ | | | RESPOND | | |
+--------------+ | | ++--+ +------+-------+ |YES|-----+ ANY MORE |
+---+ |STORED PHRASES| +------|-------+ \|/ +----------+ +-++ | |
|NO+----->-----+ FAILURE | +--+ | | +----------+ Fig 3. Flow
diagram of a slot-and-frame parserA slot-and-frame parser is simply
an implementation of two tables of data: one of known or expected
phrases, a second with corresponding responses. Phrase Response
+--------------------|------------------------+ |HELLO | HELLO |
+--------------------+------------------------+ |HOW ARE YOU? |
VERY WELL THANK YOU |
+--------------------+------------------------+ |HOW'S THE WIFE? |
STILL BREATHING | +--------------------+------------------------+
|DO YOU WANT A BEER? | IS THE POPE A CATHOLIC?|
+--------------------+------------------------+ |DO YOU TAKE SUGAR?
| NO THANKS | +--------------------+------------------------+ Fig
4. An example slot-and-frame phrase and response table (based upon
observations of Southern England, male pub culture)The second
process, the analytical consideration requires the stimuli phrase
to be broken down into components of sufficiently small size that
data associated with them can be recalled from the long-term
memory. For example. Consider an unexpected phrase: "Get that fat
cat off my grass!"Since this is not an every-day stimuli, there is
no corresponding response programmed in the short-term memory, and
analysis passes to the analytical process. The analytical process
scans the phrase to break it down into components such as:
Question/Order (The nature of the phrase)Object (What the phrase
refers to)Subject (What the phrase says about the object)Qualifiers
) )Size ) Descriptions qualifying both the object and subject )
Colour )Number (All, one, two etc)Location (Where is the
object)Action (Verbs)Person (You, me, us, them, they, him,
her)Tense (Past, present, future or indeterminable)In this phrase
the components are:The question isThe order is DO (implied)The
object is CATThe qualifiers are MYThe colours areThe sizes are
FATThe subject is GRASSThe person is YOU (implied)The number isThe
action is GET OFFThe location is GRASSThe tense is A recall then
takes place of the object - "CAT" - this being a common object it
is located in fairly close recall memory. Having collected the data
about "CAT" the same occurs for the subject - "GRASS" - and the
qualifications; "FAT" and "MY". Finally the order is interpreted
and the action taken. Little wonder then that often unexpected
stimuli of this nature will produce responses like; "What about the
cat?"Where the recall process in retrieving data about the object
has taken so much effort that it has resulted in the loss of the
original stimuli from the short term memory, as in instances of
"What were we talking about?" If, upon breaking down the stimuli
phrase we find that the "object" is missing, such as in the phrase
"They're at it again", we may require qualification of the
statement. Before requesting qualification, however, a search will
be made of the short-term memory in an attempt to qualify the
statement ourselves. Should we find that an onject exists from a
previous stimuli, then we may substitute this previous object into
the new stimuli phrase. For example; "Those damned cats are always
fighting""Oh yes?""I don't believe it! They're at it again"In the
last phrase we will substitute "they" with "those damned cats" from
the previously received stimuli phrase that is still alive in the
short-term memory, and we may also, upon finding a lack on a
required action substitute the action from the previous phrase so
that we perceive the stimuli as: "I don't believe it! Those damned
cats are fighting again"If we are unable to or we do not exert
sufficient effort to qualify the stimuli phrase ourself, we may
request qualification from the originator. As in this imaginary
intercourse: Mrs A. "They're at it again"Mr B. "Who?"Mrs A. "The
cats"Mr B. "Doing what again?"Mrs A. "Fighting!"(c) Copyright 1994
Matthew Probert
