Method for dialog management

1. A method of managing a dialog in a spoken dialog system, the method comprising:

receiving user input through a spoken dialog between the spoken dialog system and a user;

using the user input to select a dialog motivator from a plurality of dialog motivators, the plurality of dialog motivators including an assumption dialog motivator and a confirmation dialog motivator; and

when the spoken dialog system requests further user input and invokes the confirmation dialog motivator to confirm the further user input:

receiving the further user input; and

if a confidence value associated with understanding the further user input is below a threshold value, invoking the assumption dialog motivator to present assumed further user input during a confirmation dialog.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of dialog motivators comprises at least an error handling dialog motivator.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the error handling motivator further comprises a plurality of dialog sub-motivators.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the plurality of dialog sub-motivators comprises at least a mis-recognization dialog sub-motivator.

5. The method of claim 3 , wherein the plurality of dialog sub-motivators comprises at least a silent dialog sub-motivator.

6. The method of claim 3 , wherein the plurality of dialog sub-motivators comprises at least an unexpected user-input dialog sub-motivator.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, cycling through the plurality of dialog motivators to select the dialog motivator.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of dialog motivators comprises at least a disambiguation dialog motivator.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the disambiguation dialog motivator is selected when ambiguous semantic information is received.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of dialog motivators comprises at least an a-priori assumption dialog motivator.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the plurality of dialog motivators further comprises an a-posteriori assumption dialog motivator.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the a-priori assumption dialog motivator is governed by predefined rules governing call flow.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein a-priori assumption by the assumption dialog motivator requires the system to transfer the user to a main menu of an interactive voice response system if the system cannot classify the user as wanting a concrete call type.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein before the spoken dialog system transfers the user to the main menu, the spoken dialog system requests the user's telephone number.

15. The method of claim 12 , wherein a-priori assumption by the assumption dialog motivator requires the system to transfer the user to a customer service representative if the system cannot classify the user as wanting a concrete call type.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein before the spoken dialog system transfers the user to the customer service representative, the spoken dialog system requests the user's telephone number.

17. The method of claim 12 , wherein a-priori assumption by the assumption dialog motivator requires the system to transfer the user to an interactive voice response system if the system a call type is a vague call.

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein before the spoken dialog system transfers the user to the interactive voice response system, the spoken dialog system requests the user's telephone number.

19. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of dialog motivators comprises at least a missing information dialog motivator.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein the missing information motivator is selected when further user input is needed to complete a transaction.

21. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of dialog motivators comprises at least a continuation dialog motivator.

22. The method of claim 21 , wherein the continuation motivator is selected when the spoken dialog system determines to offer the user a choice to query the spoken dialog system for further information.

23. A method of communicating between a user and a computer device in a spoken dialog service using an assumption dialog motivator associated with a dialog management module, the method comprising, by the dialog management module:

creating constructs C C , C I , and C T ;

invoking a missing information dialog motivator to request first user input comprising the user's home phone number;

according to the first user input, updating construct C C and C I

if the spoken dialog service has low confidence in the first user input, invoking a confirmation dialog motivator and updating C C , C I , and C T ;

if a first user confirmation response to a first confirmation dialog is negative:

updating C C ; and

invoking the missing information dialog motivator to request second user input comprising the user's home phone number;

receiving the second user input and updating C C and C I accordingly;

if the spoken dialog service has a low confidence in the second user input, invoking the confirmation dialog motivator and updating C C , C I and C T ; and

if a second user confirmation response to a second confirmation dialog is positive, invoking the assumption dialog motivator and updating C C and C I accordingly.

24. The method of claim 23 , wherein creating constructs C C , C I , and C T further comprise creating C C =Unrecognized_Number ⋄ Home_Phone(NULL), C I Unrecognized_Number ⋄ Home_Phone(NULL), and C T =NULL.

25. The method of claim 24 , wherein updating constructs C C and C I based on the first user input further comprises setting C C =Unrecognized_Number ⋄ Home_Phone(user response) and C I =Home_Phone(user response).

26. The method of claim 25 , wherein if the confirmation dialog motivator updates C C , C I and C T , a value of Home_Phone for C C is erased and maintained in C T for possible retrieval as follows:

C C =Unrecognized_Number ⋄ Home_Phone(NULL)

C I =Home_Phone(NULL)

C T =Rep ⋄

Key ⋄

(Unrecognized_Number,

Val ⋄

Key ⋄

(Home_Phone=NULL,

Val ⋄

Home_Phone=first user input)).

27. The method of claim 26 , wherein if the user input is negative to the confirmation dialog, updating C C and C I further comprises the following:

C C =Unrecognized_Number ⋄ Home_Phone(NULL); and

C I =Home_Phone(NULL).

28. The method of claim 27 , wherein updating C C and C I according to the second user input further comprises:

C C =Unrecognized_Number ⋄ Home_Phone(second user input); and

C I =Home_Phone(second user input).

29. The method of claim 23 , wherein if the spoken dialog service has low confidence in the second user input, updating C C , C O , and C T further comprises replacing a value for Home_Phone in C T with the new value from C I since the previous assumption had been negated as follows:

C C =Unrecognized_Number ⋄ Home_Phone(NULL)

C I =Home_Phone(NULL)

C T =Rep ⋄

Key ⋄

(Unrecognized_Number,

Val ⋄

Key ⋄

(Home_Phone=NULL,

Val ⋄

(Home_Phone=second user input)).

30. The method of claim 29 , wherein if the second user confirmation response is positive, invoking the assumption dialog motivator and updating C C and C I accordingly further comprises indexing C T with Unrecognized_Number that is still the current context returned by a spoken language understanding module (SLU), and returning a C I value from the SLU as follows:

C C =Unrecognized_Number ⋄ Home_Phone(second user input); and

C I =Home_Phone.