ISE Welcomes Clayton Rothwell

Posted: 

Human Communication as a model for Human-Machine Teams

 

Seminar by Clayton Rothwell

Human Factors Specialist

Infoscitex Corporation

 

Friday, March 30th, 2018

11:30am – 12:30pm

266 Dreese Labs

2015 Neil Avenue

 

Human dependence on computers is increasing for the foreseeable future, particularly with the recent successes of artificial intelligence (AI). Yet the responsibilities given to these systems far overreach the capability for coordination and communication that is necessary for human-machine teams. Using the dialogue of human teams as a model, this talk highlights areas of communication that need further examination for AI to succeed as a collaborator, lest we be imprisoned by its incompetence. In particular, this talk examines established constructs for their design implications, e.g., the notion of common ground (i.e., shared understanding), the utilization of context in language processing and generation, and the resilience of human teams that arises from articulation work dialogues about task management. A further specification of these constructs informs both the understanding of human performance while changing the direction of system design and implementation.

 

Clayton Rothwell is a human factors specialist with Infoscitex Corporation, Dayton OH. He has a B.A. in psychology (2007, Belmont U. Nashville TN), an M.S. in human factors psychology (2014, Wright State U. Dayton, OH) and is completing a PhD in human factors psychology at Wright State U (expected April 2018). He has worked as an on-site research scientist at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB since 2012. His research leverages how human teams communicate and coordinate to design new displays for human-machine teaming that increase effectiveness. Funded by ASDR&E and AFOSR, he designed and evaluated multimodal situation displays for mission planning and management of multiple unmanned systems and intelligent agents, emphasizing natural language technology for speech (both automatic speech recognition and synthetic speech) and chat. His other research has focused on human communication (e.g., speech perception, psycholinguistics) and particularly how shared understanding is developed and maintained.