NordForsk Research Training Course
Feedback, Communicative Gesturing, and Gazing
22-28 May 2011, Helsinki, Finland
First Announcement
Organised by the University of Helsinki and the NOMCO project
in collaboration with
the CICERO Learning Network
Aims
This training course focuses on multimodal and
multilingual human-human and human-machine
interactions. Active research is being
conducted, in the Nordic countries and
worldwide, concerning different modalities and
their various functions in natural
conversations, and the activities are supported
by recent progress in interaction technology.
New tools and methods, such as high-quality
video recordings, novel recognition devices,
semi-automatic data analysis, and visualisation
techniques, enable us to study communicative
activity and investigate how the interlocutors
give feedback, maintain social bonds, and build
a shared context. The aim of the school is to
provide an opportunity for research students to
discuss methodological challenges related to
multimodal research and data collection, and to
study a number of multimodal interaction
phenomena related especially to gesturing and
gazing. The approach in the course is
multidisciplinary, and the issues will be
addressed both from a theoretical and from a
practical point of view, including hands-on
exercises on data analysis. The participants
will also have an opportunity to present their
own work. The school is thus a unique
opportunity to work with some of the leading
experts of the field, to exchange ideas and
comments with peers, and to get concrete guidance on one?s own work.
Who should participate?
The course is intended first of all for Nordic
postgraduate students and young researchers,
but students and researchers from outside the
region are also welcome to attend. Preference
will be given to those working on multimodality
or related topics for their thesis, but the
organisers will also consider applicants who
are in the final phase of their graduate
studies. The course will focus on the Nordic
languages, but there will also be material
concerning English, Estonian, and Japanese conversations.
Topics
The focus of the research training course is on
multimodal feedback and the various verbal and
non-verbal expressions that are used to give
and elicit feedback in social communication.
Issues that will be addressed concern the
function and combinations of different
modalities, such as hand gestures, body
posture, head movement, eye-gaze, and facial
expressions, as communicative means in
conversational interactions. The course can
also provide material for the comparison of
communicative behaviour and for the
categorisation of multimodal strategies in
different languages. Lectures and contributions
will address these issues from various
view-points, and some specific questions that will be discussed deal with e.g.:
1) Feedback content
- How do speakers indicate, display and
signal to each other that they can perceive,
understand, or accept what their interlocutor is communicating?
- How do speakers provide feedback on
negative aspects of the communicative
situation, i.e. how do they signal
disagreement, uncertainty, hesitation, misunderstanding, or non-understanding?
- What kind of relation exists between
the auditory (vocalization and short words like
mhm, yeah, no) and visual (head nods, head
shakes, eye-gaze, posture shifts, etc.) modalities?
- What kind of similarities and
dissimilarities can be found across modalities in different cultures?
- How can multimodal feedback behaviour
be automatically modelled and visualised, and
can the models be incorporated into automatic interactive applications?
2) Methodology
- Can we provide standards or
recommendations for describing multimodal feedback behaviour?
- Are comparable data sets on multimodal behaviour possible to build?
- What are the minimal units that are used to signal feedback?
- How are communicatively important signals identified and interpreted?
Programme and social events
The training course will take place on 23-27
May at the University of Helsinki, partly
overlapping the Nordic Symposium on Multimodal
Interaction, which will take place on May 27-28
on the same location, so that the participants can easily attend both events.
The course will consist of lectures,
demonstrations, student presentations, and
hands-on exercises covering the course topics.
There will be time for the students to discuss
their work with appointed tutors and with each
other. The students? own activity is encouraged
by requesting the participants to give a short
presentation of their project, and to give
comments on the other students? projects, so as
to get maximal benefit from the interactive situations.
The social programme will feature a welcoming
reception on Monday, an excursion on Wednesday
afternoon, and a joint dinner with the
symposium on Friday. On Saturday evening there
will also be a social gathering and the
possibility to experience a typical Finnish sauna.
The teachers are experts in their field of
study. Besides the organisers of the NOMCO
project, the course will feature
internationally acknowledged researchers as invited lecturers:
Roman Bedyarak, Eye-gaze, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
Nick Campbell, Data collection and analysis, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Marianne Gullberg, Gesturing, University of Lund, Sweden
Dirk Heylen, Multimodal communication, University of Twente, The Netherlands
Aulikki Hyrskykari, Eye-tracking applications, University of Tampere, Finland
Isabella Poggi, Facial expressions, University of Rome, Italy
Matthias Rehm, Communicative activity, University of Aalborg, Denmark
Tentative course schedule
Monday 23/5
Tuesday 24/5
Wednesday
Thursday 26/5
Friday 27/5
09-12
Lectures (JA) :
Introduction to multimodalcommunication
Lectures (MG): Hand gesturing
Lectures (IP):
ExpressiveFace
Lectures (AH):
Eye-gaze and eye tracking
Lectures (NC):
Body posture & communicative activity
12-13
Lunch
13-15
Student
presentations/Lab exercises
Student
Presentations/
Lab exercises
Student
Presentations/Lab exercises
Student
Presentations/Lab exercises
Paper presentations
15-16
Coffee
16-18
Lecture (DH)
Lecture (MR)
Excursion
Lecture (RB)
Paper presentations
19-
Welcome reception
Dinner
Participation requirements
The course is funded by the NordForsk programme
?Research Training Course of the Nordic Academy
for Advanced Study? and by the NorFA
collaborative research project NOMCO. The
course is supported by the University of
Helsinki and the CICERO Learning Network. Lunch
and refreshments will be provided, and the
participating students? travel and lodging will
be refunded for students coming from the Nordic
countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway,
and Sweden). Students from other countries have
to pay all the cost themselves. A maximum of 40 participants will be accepted.
To apply for participation, send a completed
application form and a short abstract (max. 1
page) describing your research work or PhD
project to <mailto:(nordforsk-course /at/ helsinki.fi)>(nordforsk-course /at/ helsinki.fi)
You can send any questions to Kristiina
Jokinen:
<mailto:(kristiina.jokinen /at/ helsinki.fi)>(kristiina.jokinen /at/ helsinki.fi).
The subject line should contain ?NordForsk Course?.
Credits
The course can be taken for credit.
Participating students should agree with their
supervisor in advance on the exact number of
credits, depending on the planned level of
participation and the study system the student
is registered for. Considering the course
activities ? full-time attendance for a week
including lab exercises, reading of relevant
literature, preparation of a short abstract,
and discussion of another participant?s
abstract ? the recommendation is 5 study
points. The students will be given a certificate of attendance.
Important dates
Application deadline: 15 March 2011
Registration confirmation: 30 March 2011
Reading material announced: 15 April 2011
Research training course: 22-28 May 2011
Organizing Committee
Elisabeth Ahlsèn, University of Gothenburg
Jens Allwood, University of Gothenburg
Kristiina Jokinen, University of Helsinki
Costanza Navarretta, University of Copenhagen
Patrizia Paggio, University of Copenhagen
Useful links
Course website:
<http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/kjokinen/nordforskCourse>http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/kjokinen/nordforskCourse
NOMCO project: <http://sskkii.gu.se/nomco>http://sskkii.gu.se/nomco
MUMIN network: <http://www.cst.dk/mumin>http://www.cst.dk/mumin
CICERO Learning network:
<http://www.cicero.fi/sivut2/>http://www.cicero.fi/sivut2/
APPLICATION FORM
The Nordic Graduate Course and Symposium
Feedback, Communicative Gesturing, and Gazing
Helsinki, 22-29 May 2011
Name:
Degree:
Affiliation (University and department):
Position:
If graduate student, start of graduate education:
If graduate student, name of the supervisor/referee:
Research interests:
Address:
Email:
Phone:
Fax:
I?d like to attend the graduate course (yes/no):
I?d like to present my PhD/research project (yes/no):
If yes, title of the project:
I?d like to contribute by commenting on another
participant?s project (yes/no):
I?d like to attend the symposium (yes/no):
I?d like to give a presentation at the symposium (yes/no):
If yes, title of presentation:
