Rolf Black | University of Dundee (original) (raw)
Papers by Rolf Black
Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2016
This paper describes a Natural Language Generation system (NLG), How was School Today? that autom... more This paper describes a Natural Language Generation system (NLG), How was School Today? that automatically creates a personal narrative from sensor data and other media (photos and audio). It can be used by children with complex communication needs in schools to support interactive narrative about personal experiences. The robustness of story generation to missing data was identified as a key area for improvement in a feasibility study of the system at a first special needs school. This paper therefore suggests three possible methods for generating stories from unstructured data: clustering by voice recording, by location, or by time. Clustering based on voice recordings resulted in stories that were perceived as most easy to read, and to make most sense, by parents in a quantitative evaluation. This method was implemented in the live system, which was developed and evaluated iteratively at a second special needs school with children with different usage profiles. Open challenges and possibilities for nlg in augmented and alternative communication are also discussed.
European journal of dental education : official journal of the Association for Dental Education in Europe, Jan 20, 2015
To examine dentists' views of a novel video review technique to improve communication skills ... more To examine dentists' views of a novel video review technique to improve communication skills in complex clinical situations. Dentists (n = 3) participated in a video review known as Video Interaction Guidance to encourage more attuned interactions with their patients (n = 4). Part of this process is to identify where dentists and patients reacted positively and effectively. Each dentist was presented with short segments of video footage taken during an appointment with a patient with intellectual disabilities and communication difficulties. Having observed their interactions with patients, dentists were asked to reflect on their communication strategies with the assistance of a trained VIG specialist. Dentists reflected that their VIG session had been insightful and considered the review process as beneficial to communication skills training in dentistry. They believed that this technique could significantly improve the way dentists interact and communicate with patients. The VI...
Natural Language Generation in Interactive Systems, 2009
Currently available commercial Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) technology makes ... more Currently available commercial Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) technology makes little use of computing power to improve the access to words and phrases for personal narrative, an essential part of social interaction. In this paper, we describe the development and evaluation of a mobile phone application to enable data collection for a personal narrative system for children with severe speech and physical impairments (SSPI). Based on user feedback from the previous project "How was School today?" we developed a modular system where school staff can use a mobile phone to track interaction with people and objects and user location at school. The phone also allows taking digital photographs and recording voice message sets by both school staff and parents/carers at home. These sets can be played back by the child for immediate narrative sharing similar to established AAC device interaction using sequential voice recorders. The mobile phone sends all the gathered data to a remote server. The data can then be used for automatic narrative generation on the child's PC based communication aid. Early results from the ongoing evaluation of the application in a special school with two participants and school staff show that staff were able to track interactions, record voice messages and take photographs. Location tracking was less successful, but was supplemented by timetable information. The participating children were able to play back voice messages and show photographs on the mobile phone for interactive narrative sharing using both direct and switch activated playback options.
ABSTRACT Current Voice Output Communication Aids (VOCAs) give little support for playing with sou... more ABSTRACT Current Voice Output Communication Aids (VOCAs) give little support for playing with sounds and blending these into words. This paper presents a joystick that can be used to access six different letter sounds (phonics) and blend them into short words. Seven children (five with some degree of physical and/or learning disability) showed their ability to use the device after only one 20 minutes introduction session.
Language Resources and Evaluation, 2008
As part of a project to construct an interactive program which would encourage children to play w... more As part of a project to construct an interactive program which would encourage children to play with language by building jokes, we developed a lexical database, starting from WordNet. To the existing information about part of speech, synonymy, hyponymy, etc., we have added various enhancements, including phonetic similarity ratings for pairs of words/phrases.
Background In 2005 the development of a communication device, a talking joystick called the Phoni... more Background In 2005 the development of a communication device, a talking joystick called the PhonicStick, started at the School of Computing at the University of Dundee in Scotland. The main focus with the project was to help children with physical disabilities to create ...
… Biennial Conference of …, 2008
... Clear unaided yes/no, some spoken words and some Makaton signs, SGD (Dynavox MT4) with PCS, d... more ... Clear unaided yes/no, some spoken words and some Makaton signs, SGD (Dynavox MT4) with PCS, direct access via touch screen with key guard ... All seven children were able to retrieve all six phonics in order to sound out words within a game scenario after one training ...
ABSTRACT The "How was School today...?" project has successfully introduced a n... more ABSTRACT The "How was School today...?" project has successfully introduced a new personal narrative tool for children with severe speech and physical impairments. The system uses sensor data, voice recordings and other information (such as the child's timetable) to automatically generate narrative utterances for the child to use in conversation with parents. The final prototype consists of two modules; 1) a switch accessible mobile phone: This is used for data collection and narrative sharing using voice recordings and photographs; and b) a PC based VOCA/SGD which gives access to additionally generated story utterances using the collected data and evaluations (such as "I liked it" or "She is nice"). An interface allows for editing and telling the narrative. Both modules use wireless mobile network connection for data exchange. The user centred design methods applied in collaboration with special schools will be described and the challenges and results discussed.
This paper examines the potential of using natural language generation to support "hands busy, ey... more This paper examines the potential of using natural language generation to support "hands busy, eyes busy" automotive applications. It outlines a hierarchy of complexity of output text, and the type of sensor data that may be collected. It also suggests a number of ways natural language generation can generate narrative events from sensor data for drivers.
... Rolf Black Joe Reddington, Ehud Reiter, Nava Tintarev Annalu Waller School of Computing Depar... more ... Rolf Black Joe Reddington, Ehud Reiter, Nava Tintarev Annalu Waller School of Computing Department of Computing Science ... Eric's timetable was different from Julie and Jessi-ca's, because he visited college one morning a day, and we could not collect data during this period ...
Communication Matters, 2007
Proceedings of the 4th International Joint Conference on Computational Creativity, 2007
The past 15 years has seen the development of a number of programs which perform tasks in the are... more The past 15 years has seen the development of a number of programs which perform tasks in the area of humour, but these have been exploratory research prototypes, usually on a very small scale, and none of them interacted with users. Amongst those which actually created humorous texts, the JAPE program was probably the most substantial, but even it was far from being useful for any practical purpose. We have developed a fully engineered riddle generator, inspired by the ideas in the JAPE system, which uses a large ...
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2016
This paper describes a Natural Language Generation system (NLG), How was School Today? that autom... more This paper describes a Natural Language Generation system (NLG), How was School Today? that automatically creates a personal narrative from sensor data and other media (photos and audio). It can be used by children with complex communication needs in schools to support interactive narrative about personal experiences. The robustness of story generation to missing data was identified as a key area for improvement in a feasibility study of the system at a first special needs school. This paper therefore suggests three possible methods for generating stories from unstructured data: clustering by voice recording, by location, or by time. Clustering based on voice recordings resulted in stories that were perceived as most easy to read, and to make most sense, by parents in a quantitative evaluation. This method was implemented in the live system, which was developed and evaluated iteratively at a second special needs school with children with different usage profiles. Open challenges and possibilities for nlg in augmented and alternative communication are also discussed.
Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2016
This paper describes a Natural Language Generation system (NLG), How was School Today? that autom... more This paper describes a Natural Language Generation system (NLG), How was School Today? that automatically creates a personal narrative from sensor data and other media (photos and audio). It can be used by children with complex communication needs in schools to support interactive narrative about personal experiences. The robustness of story generation to missing data was identified as a key area for improvement in a feasibility study of the system at a first special needs school. This paper therefore suggests three possible methods for generating stories from unstructured data: clustering by voice recording, by location, or by time. Clustering based on voice recordings resulted in stories that were perceived as most easy to read, and to make most sense, by parents in a quantitative evaluation. This method was implemented in the live system, which was developed and evaluated iteratively at a second special needs school with children with different usage profiles. Open challenges and possibilities for nlg in augmented and alternative communication are also discussed.
European journal of dental education : official journal of the Association for Dental Education in Europe, Jan 20, 2015
To examine dentists' views of a novel video review technique to improve communication skills ... more To examine dentists' views of a novel video review technique to improve communication skills in complex clinical situations. Dentists (n = 3) participated in a video review known as Video Interaction Guidance to encourage more attuned interactions with their patients (n = 4). Part of this process is to identify where dentists and patients reacted positively and effectively. Each dentist was presented with short segments of video footage taken during an appointment with a patient with intellectual disabilities and communication difficulties. Having observed their interactions with patients, dentists were asked to reflect on their communication strategies with the assistance of a trained VIG specialist. Dentists reflected that their VIG session had been insightful and considered the review process as beneficial to communication skills training in dentistry. They believed that this technique could significantly improve the way dentists interact and communicate with patients. The VI...
Natural Language Generation in Interactive Systems, 2009
Currently available commercial Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) technology makes ... more Currently available commercial Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) technology makes little use of computing power to improve the access to words and phrases for personal narrative, an essential part of social interaction. In this paper, we describe the development and evaluation of a mobile phone application to enable data collection for a personal narrative system for children with severe speech and physical impairments (SSPI). Based on user feedback from the previous project "How was School today?" we developed a modular system where school staff can use a mobile phone to track interaction with people and objects and user location at school. The phone also allows taking digital photographs and recording voice message sets by both school staff and parents/carers at home. These sets can be played back by the child for immediate narrative sharing similar to established AAC device interaction using sequential voice recorders. The mobile phone sends all the gathered data to a remote server. The data can then be used for automatic narrative generation on the child's PC based communication aid. Early results from the ongoing evaluation of the application in a special school with two participants and school staff show that staff were able to track interactions, record voice messages and take photographs. Location tracking was less successful, but was supplemented by timetable information. The participating children were able to play back voice messages and show photographs on the mobile phone for interactive narrative sharing using both direct and switch activated playback options.
ABSTRACT Current Voice Output Communication Aids (VOCAs) give little support for playing with sou... more ABSTRACT Current Voice Output Communication Aids (VOCAs) give little support for playing with sounds and blending these into words. This paper presents a joystick that can be used to access six different letter sounds (phonics) and blend them into short words. Seven children (five with some degree of physical and/or learning disability) showed their ability to use the device after only one 20 minutes introduction session.
Language Resources and Evaluation, 2008
As part of a project to construct an interactive program which would encourage children to play w... more As part of a project to construct an interactive program which would encourage children to play with language by building jokes, we developed a lexical database, starting from WordNet. To the existing information about part of speech, synonymy, hyponymy, etc., we have added various enhancements, including phonetic similarity ratings for pairs of words/phrases.
Background In 2005 the development of a communication device, a talking joystick called the Phoni... more Background In 2005 the development of a communication device, a talking joystick called the PhonicStick, started at the School of Computing at the University of Dundee in Scotland. The main focus with the project was to help children with physical disabilities to create ...
… Biennial Conference of …, 2008
... Clear unaided yes/no, some spoken words and some Makaton signs, SGD (Dynavox MT4) with PCS, d... more ... Clear unaided yes/no, some spoken words and some Makaton signs, SGD (Dynavox MT4) with PCS, direct access via touch screen with key guard ... All seven children were able to retrieve all six phonics in order to sound out words within a game scenario after one training ...
ABSTRACT The "How was School today...?" project has successfully introduced a n... more ABSTRACT The "How was School today...?" project has successfully introduced a new personal narrative tool for children with severe speech and physical impairments. The system uses sensor data, voice recordings and other information (such as the child's timetable) to automatically generate narrative utterances for the child to use in conversation with parents. The final prototype consists of two modules; 1) a switch accessible mobile phone: This is used for data collection and narrative sharing using voice recordings and photographs; and b) a PC based VOCA/SGD which gives access to additionally generated story utterances using the collected data and evaluations (such as "I liked it" or "She is nice"). An interface allows for editing and telling the narrative. Both modules use wireless mobile network connection for data exchange. The user centred design methods applied in collaboration with special schools will be described and the challenges and results discussed.
This paper examines the potential of using natural language generation to support "hands busy, ey... more This paper examines the potential of using natural language generation to support "hands busy, eyes busy" automotive applications. It outlines a hierarchy of complexity of output text, and the type of sensor data that may be collected. It also suggests a number of ways natural language generation can generate narrative events from sensor data for drivers.
... Rolf Black Joe Reddington, Ehud Reiter, Nava Tintarev Annalu Waller School of Computing Depar... more ... Rolf Black Joe Reddington, Ehud Reiter, Nava Tintarev Annalu Waller School of Computing Department of Computing Science ... Eric's timetable was different from Julie and Jessi-ca's, because he visited college one morning a day, and we could not collect data during this period ...
Communication Matters, 2007
Proceedings of the 4th International Joint Conference on Computational Creativity, 2007
The past 15 years has seen the development of a number of programs which perform tasks in the are... more The past 15 years has seen the development of a number of programs which perform tasks in the area of humour, but these have been exploratory research prototypes, usually on a very small scale, and none of them interacted with users. Amongst those which actually created humorous texts, the JAPE program was probably the most substantial, but even it was far from being useful for any practical purpose. We have developed a fully engineered riddle generator, inspired by the ideas in the JAPE system, which uses a large ...
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2016
This paper describes a Natural Language Generation system (NLG), How was School Today? that autom... more This paper describes a Natural Language Generation system (NLG), How was School Today? that automatically creates a personal narrative from sensor data and other media (photos and audio). It can be used by children with complex communication needs in schools to support interactive narrative about personal experiences. The robustness of story generation to missing data was identified as a key area for improvement in a feasibility study of the system at a first special needs school. This paper therefore suggests three possible methods for generating stories from unstructured data: clustering by voice recording, by location, or by time. Clustering based on voice recordings resulted in stories that were perceived as most easy to read, and to make most sense, by parents in a quantitative evaluation. This method was implemented in the live system, which was developed and evaluated iteratively at a second special needs school with children with different usage profiles. Open challenges and possibilities for nlg in augmented and alternative communication are also discussed.