The Spoken Language Component of the Mask KioskJ

The aim of the Multimodal-Multimedia Automated Service Kiosk (MASK) project is to pave the way for more advanced public service applications by user interfaces employing multimodal, multi-media input and output. The project has analyzed the technological requirements in the context of users and the tasks they perform in carrying out travel enquiries, and developed a prototype information kiosk that will be installed in the Gare St. Lazare in Paris. The kiosk will improve the eeectiveness of such services by enabling interaction through the coordinated use of multimodal inputs (speech and touch) and multimedia output (sound, video, text, and graphics) and in doing so create the opportunity for new public services. Vocal input is managed by a spoken language system, which aims to provide a natural interface between the user and the computer through the use of simple and natural dialogs. In this paper the architecture and the capabilities of the spoken language system are described, with emphasis on the speaker-independent, large vocabulary continuous speech recognizer, the natural language component (including semantic analysis and dialog management), and the response generator. We also describe our data collection and evaluation activities which are crucial to system development.