A growing literature on speech interruptions describes how people interrupt one another with speech, but these behaviours have not yet been implemented in the design of artificial agents which interrupt. Perceptions of a prototype proactive speech agent which adapts its speech to both urgency and to the difficulty of the ongoing task it interrupts are compared against perceptions of a static proactive agent which does not. The study hypothesises that adaptive proactive speech modelled on human speech interruptions will lead to partner models which consider the proactive agent as a stronger conversational partner than a static agent, and that interruptions initiated by an adaptive agent will be judged as better timed and more appropriately asked. These hypotheses are all rejected however, as quantitative analysis reveals that participants view the adaptive agent as a poorer dialogue partner than the static agent and as less appropriate in the style it interrupts. Qualitative analysis sheds light on the source of this surprising finding, as participants see the adaptive agent as less socially appropriate and as less consistent in its interactions than the static agent.

翻译：关于语音中断的研究文献日益增多，描述了人们如何通过语音相互打断，但这些行为尚未被应用于设计会主动打断他人的人工代理。本研究将一种能够根据紧迫性和被打断任务的难度调整其语音的自适应主动语音代理原型，与一种不进行调整的静态主动代理进行感知对比。研究假设，基于人类语音中断建模的自适应主动语音会使合作伙伴模型认为该主动代理比静态代理更强的对话伙伴，并且由自适应代理发起的打断将被判断为时机更佳、提问更恰当。然而，这些假设均被否定，因为定量分析显示，参与者认为自适应代理是比静态代理更差的对话伙伴，且其打断方式更不合适。定性分析揭示了这一惊人发现的根源：参与者认为自适应代理在社交恰当性和交互一致性方面均逊于静态代理。