Applying task classification to natural meetings

This paper considers the problem of understanding the conversational tasks of participants in naturally occurring meetings. Task classification is important for, among many reasons, system design but is an exceptionally difficult problem. In our study, we reviewed some prior approaches to task classification and extended a laboratory-oriented scheme for use in natural conversations. We applied the extended scheme to a variety of meeting conversations, including two entire meetings. The data and our experience indicate that task classification does capture significant aspects of the interaction but that there are problems with this—and likely any—method. Applying Task Classification. 3