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Second Call for Papers: SIGdial 2020 Special Session on Situated<br class="">
Dialogue with Virtual Agents and Robots (RoboDial 2.0)<br class="">
<br class="">
SIGdial main conference submissions due <b class="">March 6</b>.<br class="">
Late-breaking, work-in-progress, and position papers due <b class="">May 15</b>.<br class="">
<br class="">
**Introduction**<br class="">
Recent technologies have brought conversational robots out of the lab<br class="">
and into the homes and workplaces of real users. Dialogue is now<br class="">
actively taking place between people and agents to operate, navigate,<br class="">
visualize, and interact in physical or virtual spaces. *Situated<br class="">
dialogue* distinguishes itself from other forms of dialogue in that it<br class="">
(1) takes place in an environment (real or simulated), (2) refers to<br class="">
the shared surroundings of interlocutors, and (3) involves an embodied<br class="">
agent (e.g., a robot or device). There is a growing need for<br class="">
bi-directional dialogue work to be showcased that supports the body of<br class="">
research on language grounding, vision and language, as well as<br class="">
dialogue that will allow situated agents, like robots, to ask for<br class="">
clarification and provide updates on their internal states.<br class="">
<br class="">
Our objectives in this special session are to showcase recent and<br class="">
ongoing work on situated dialogue, and to identify paths forward in<br class="">
this space from research across communities including dialogue,<br class="">
robotics, virtual agents, computer vision, NLP, and AI. The special<br class="">
session will feature oral presentations and a poster session. We<br class="">
welcome submissions on any topic related to situated dialogue,<br class="">
including but not limited to:<br class="">
- Interaction studies with smart-home devices and virtual agents<br class="">
- Learning from demonstration through natural language dialogue<br class="">
- Explainable AI in physical and virtual spaces<br class="">
- Representations of physical surroundings / world modeling to support<br class="">
grounded communication<br class="">
- Embodied visual question answering and/or generation<br class="">
- Empirical studies of human-robot dialogue (Wizard-of-Oz based,<br class="">
simulated, or semi-autonomous)<br class="">
- Computational models of dialogue management and/or turn-taking with<br class="">
physical or virtual agents<br class="">
- Methods of building or leveraging common ground with physical agents<br class="">
in real-world or simulated environments<br class="">
- Corpora of situated dialogue (Wizard-of-Oz based, simulated, or<br class="">
semi-autonomous)<br class="">
- Corpus analysis of situated dialogue<br class="">
- Multimodal information processing to support dialogue (including<br class="">
speech, gaze, gesture)<br class="">
- Physical embodiment, voice, or personification of robots and its<br class="">
effect on human-robot dialogue<br class="">
- Communicating feedback from robots using affordances in addition to speech<br class="">
- Machine learning methods for embodied dialogue systems<br class="">
- Dialogue-based collaborative human-robot interaction<br class="">
- Spoken language generation for situated dialogue<br class="">
- Spoken language / speech processing technologies to support situated dialogue<br class="">
<br class="">
**Call for Papers**<br class="">
<br class="">
Researchers may choose to submit:<br class="">
*Long papers and short papers* will present original research and go<br class="">
through the same peer review process by the SIGdial program committee<br class="">
as papers submitted to the main SIGdial track. These papers will<br class="">
appear in the main SIGdial proceedings and are presented with the main<br class="">
track. Long papers must be no longer than eight pages, including<br class="">
title, text, figures and tables, along with two additional pages for<br class="">
example discourses or dialogues and algorithms, and an extra page is<br class="">
allowed in the final version to address reviewers' comments. Short<br class="">
papers should be no longer than four pages including title, text,<br class="">
figures and tables, along with one additional page for example<br class="">
discourses or dialogues and algorithms, and an extra page is allowed<br class="">
in the final version to address reviewers' comments. An unlimited<br class="">
number of pages are allowed for references.<br class="">
<br class="">
*Late-breaking and work-in-progress papers* will showcase ongoing work<br class="">
and focused, relevant contributions. Submissions need not present<br class="">
original work. Late-breaking and work-in-progress papers should be no<br class="">
longer than four pages including title, text, figures and tables, and<br class="">
references. These will be reviewed by the special session organizers<br class="">
and posted on the special session website. These papers will be<br class="">
presented as lightning talks or posters during the session. Authors<br class="">
will retain the copyright to their work so that they may submit to<br class="">
other venues as their work matures.<br class="">
<br class="">
*Position papers* will give voice to authors who wish to take a<br class="">
position on a topic listed above or the field of spoken, situated<br class="">
dialogue on robots at large. Submissions need not present original<br class="">
work. These will be reviewed by the special session organizers and<br class="">
posted on the special session website. These papers will be presented<br class="">
as lightning talks or posters during the session. Authors will retain<br class="">
the copyright to their work so that they may submit to other venues.<br class="">
<br class="">
Important Dates<br class="">
<br class="">
**Long and short paper submission deadline: March 6**<br class="">
To submit a long or short paper, please go to the SIGdial 2020 START<br class="">
page (<a href="https://www.softconf.com/l/sigdial2020/" class="">https://www.softconf.com/l/sigdial2020/</a>). When submitting,<br class="">
indicate “Special Session Paper (RoboDial 2.0)” under the “Submission<br class="">
Type” category. All long and short submissions must follow the SIGdial<br class="">
2020 format.<br class="">
<br class="">
**Late-breaking and work-in-progress paper deadline: May 15**<br class="">
To submit a late-breaking or work-in-progress paper, please email a<br class="">
2-4 page PDF (including references) formatted using the SIGdial 2020<br class="">
format guidelines, to: <a href="mailto:robodial@googlegroups.com" class="">robodial@googlegroups.com</a> by May 15. You will<br class="">
receive a confirmation of your submission and notification before the<br class="">
Early Bird Registration deadline.<br class="">
<br class="">
**Position paper deadline: May 15**<br class="">
To submit a position paper, please email a 4-6 page PDF (including<br class="">
references) formatted using the SIGdial 2020 format guidelines, to:<br class="">
<a href="mailto:robodial@googlegroups.com" class="">robodial@googlegroups.com</a> by May 15. You will receive a confirmation<br class="">
of your submission and notification before the Early Bird Registration<br class="">
deadline.<br class="">
<br class="">
**List of Organizers**<br class="">
Jose David Lopes, Heriot Watt University<br class="">
Stephanie Lukin, Army Research Lab<br class="">
Matthew Marge, Army Research Lab<br class="">
Vikram Ramanarayanan, Educational Testing Service<br class="">
Matthias Scheutz, Tufts University<br class="">
Casey Kennington, Boise State University<br class="">
Cynthia Matuszek, University of Maryland, Baltimore County<br class="">
Contact: <a href="mailto:robodial@googlegroups.com" class="">robodial@googlegroups.com</a><br class="">
<br class="">
**Website**<br class="">
For more information and updates please check the special session<br class="">
website at <a href="https://robodial.github.io" class="">https://robodial.github.io</a><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
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