Language speakers often use what are known as repair initiators to mend fundamental disconnects that occur between them during verbal communication. Previous research in this field has mainly focused on the human-to-human use of repair initiator. We proposed an examination of dialogue repair structure wherein the dialogue initiator is human and the party that initiates or responds to the repair is a virtual assistant. This study examined the use of repair initiators in both English and Spanish with two popular assistants, Google Assistant and Apple's Siri. Our aim was to codify the differences, if any, in responses by voice assistants to dialogues in need of repair as compared to human-human dialogues also in need of repair. Ultimately the data demonstrated that not only were there differences between human-assistant and human-human dialogue repair strategies, but that there were likewise differences among the assistants and the languages studied.

翻译：语言使用者经常使用所谓的修复启动器来弥补口头交流中出现的基本断连。先前该领域的研究主要聚焦于人类之间使用修复启动器的情况。我们提出了一项对话修复结构研究，其中对话发起者为人类，而发起或回应修复的一方为虚拟助手。本研究考察了两种流行助手（谷歌助手和苹果Siri）中英语和西班牙语修复启动器的使用情况。我们的目标是系统化地厘清语音助手对需要修复的对话的回应与同样需要修复的人人对话之间的差异（如果存在）。最终数据表明，不仅人机对话与人人对话的修复策略存在差异，不同助手之间以及所研究的语言之间也同样存在差异。