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  • © 2016

The Conversational Interface

Talking to Smart Devices

  • Presents a comprehensive overview of the various technologies that underlie conversational user interfaces
  • Combines descriptions of the technologies with a guide to various toolkits and software that enable readers to implement and test their own solutions
  • Provides a series of worked examples so readers can develop and implement different aspects of the technologies
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

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Table of contents (18 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxii
  2. Introducing the Conversational Interface

    • Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol
    Pages 1-7
  3. Conversational Interfaces: Preliminaries

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 9-9
    2. The Dawn of the Conversational Interface

      • Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol
      Pages 11-24
    3. Toward a Technology of Conversation

      • Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol
      Pages 25-50
    4. Conversational Interfaces: Past and Present

      • Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol
      Pages 51-72
  4. Developing a Speech-Based Conversational Interface

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 73-73
    2. Speech Input and Output

      • Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol
      Pages 75-92
    3. Implementing Speech Input and Output

      • Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol
      Pages 93-123
    4. Creating a Conversational Interface Using Chatbot Technology

      • Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol
      Pages 125-159
    5. Spoken Language Understanding

      • Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol
      Pages 161-185
    6. Implementing Spoken Language Understanding

      • Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol
      Pages 187-208
    7. Dialog Management

      • Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol
      Pages 209-233
    8. Implementing Dialog Management

      • Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol
      Pages 235-263
    9. Response Generation

      • Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol
      Pages 265-279
  5. Conversational Interfaces and Devices

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 281-281
    2. Conversational Interfaces: Devices, Wearables, Virtual Agents, and Robots

      • Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol
      Pages 283-308
    3. Emotion, Affect, and Personality

      • Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol
      Pages 309-327
    4. Affective Conversational Interfaces

      • Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol
      Pages 329-357
    5. Implementing Multimodal Conversational Interfaces Using Android Wear

      • Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol
      Pages 359-376

About this book

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the conversational interface, which is becoming the main mode of interaction with virtual personal assistants, smart devices, various types of wearable, and social robots. The book consists of four parts.  Part I presents the background to conversational interfaces, examining past and present work on spoken language interaction with computers. Part II covers the various technologies that are required to build a conversational interface along with practical chapters and exercises using open source tools. Part III looks at interactions with smart devices, wearables, and robots, and discusses the role of emotion and personality in the conversational interface. Part IV examines methods for evaluating conversational interfaces and discusses future directions.  

Authors and Affiliations

  • School of Computing and Mathematics, University of Ulster, North Ireland, United Kingdom

    Michael McTear

  • ETSI Informática y Telecomunicación, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Zoraida Callejas

  • Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    David Griol

About the authors

Michael F. McTear

Michael McTear

Michael McTear is Emeritus Professor at the University of Ulster with a special research interest in spoken language technologies. He graduated in German Language and Literature from Queens University Belfast in 1965, was awarded MA in Linguistics at University of Essex in 1975, and a PhD at the University of Ulster in 1981. He has been Visiting Professor at the University of Hawaii (1986-87), the University of Koblenz, Germany (1994-95), and University of Granada, Spain (2006- 2010). He has been researching in the field of spoken dialogue systems for more than fifteen years and is the author of the widely used textbook Spoken dialogue technology: toward the conversational user interface (Springer, 2004). He also is a co-author (with Kristiina Jokinen) of the book Spoken Dialogue Systems, (Morgan and Claypool, 2010), and (with Zoraida Callejas) of the book Voice Application Development for Android (Packt Publishing,2013).

Zoraida Callejas

Zoraida Callejas is Associate Professor at the University of Granada, Spain, and member of the CITIC-UGR Research Institute. She graduated in Computer Science in 2005, and was awarded a PhD in 2008, also at the University of Granada. Her research is focused on dialogue systems, especially on affective human-machine conversational interaction, and she has made more than 160 contributions to books, journals and conferences. She has participated in several research projects related to these topics and contributes to scientific committees and societies in the area.  She has been Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic (2007-13), University of Trento, Italy (2008), University of Ulster, Northern Ireland (2009), Technical University of Berlin, Germany (2010), University of Ulm, Germany (2012, 2014) and ParisTech, France (2013). She is co-author (with Michael McTear) of the book Voice Application Development for Android (Packt Publishing, 2013).

David Griol

David Griol is Professor at the Department of Computer Science in the Carlos III University of Madrid (Spain). He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the Technical University of Valencia (Spain) in 2007. He also has a B.S. in Telecommunication Science from this University. He has participated in several European and Spanish projects related to natural language processing and conversational interfaces. His main research activities are mostly related to the study of statistical methodologies for dialog management, dialog simulation, user modeling, adaptation and evaluation of dialog systems, mobile technologies, and multimodal interfaces. His research results have been applied to several application domains including Education, Healthcare, Virtual Environments, Augmented Reality, Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments, and he has published in a number of international journals and conferences. He has been a visiting researcher at the University of Ulster (Belfast, UK), Technical University of Liberec (Liberec, Czech Republic), University of Trento (Trento, Italy), Technical University of Berlin (Berlin, Germany), and ParisTech University (Paris, France). He is a member of several research associations for Artificial Intelligence, Speech Processing, and Human-Computer Interaction.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Conversational Interface

  • Book Subtitle: Talking to Smart Devices

  • Authors: Michael McTear, Zoraida Callejas, David Griol

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32967-3

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Engineering, Engineering (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-32965-9Published: 27 May 2016

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-81411-7Published: 07 June 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-32967-3Published: 19 May 2016

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXII, 422

  • Number of Illustrations: 47 b/w illustrations, 29 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Signal, Image and Speech Processing, User Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction, Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access