RESPOND: Responsive Engagement Strategy for Predictive Orchestration and Dialogue

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Lee, Meng-Chen, Panay, Costas, Hernandez, Javier, Andrist, Sean, Bohus, Dan, Churikov, Anatoly, Wilson, Andrew D.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Lee, Meng-Chen
Panay, Costas
Hernandez, Javier
Andrist, Sean
Bohus, Dan
Churikov, Anatoly
Wilson, Andrew D.
author_facet Lee, Meng-Chen
Panay, Costas
Hernandez, Javier
Andrist, Sean
Bohus, Dan
Churikov, Anatoly
Wilson, Andrew D.
contents The majority of voice-based conversational agents still rely on pause-and-respond turn-taking, leaving interactions sounding stiff and robotic. We present RESPOND (Responsive Engagement Strategy for Predictive Orchestration and Dialogue), a framework that brings two staples of human conversation to agents: timely backchannels ("mm-hmm," "right") and proactive turn claims that can contribute relevant content before the speaker yields the conversational floor. Built on streaming ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) and incremental semantics, RESPOND continuously predicts both when and how to interject, enabling fluid, listener-aware dialogue. A defining feature is its designer-facing controllability: two orthogonal dials, Backchannel Intensity (frequency of acknowledgments) and Turn Claim Aggressiveness (depth and assertiveness of early contributions), can be tuned to match the etiquette of contexts ranging from rapid ideation to reflective counseling. By coupling predictive orchestration with explicit control, RESPOND offers a practical path toward conversational agents that adapt their conversational footprint to social expectations, advancing the design of more natural and engaging voice interfaces.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_21682
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle RESPOND: Responsive Engagement Strategy for Predictive Orchestration and Dialogue
Lee, Meng-Chen
Panay, Costas
Hernandez, Javier
Andrist, Sean
Bohus, Dan
Churikov, Anatoly
Wilson, Andrew D.
Human-Computer Interaction
H.5.2
The majority of voice-based conversational agents still rely on pause-and-respond turn-taking, leaving interactions sounding stiff and robotic. We present RESPOND (Responsive Engagement Strategy for Predictive Orchestration and Dialogue), a framework that brings two staples of human conversation to agents: timely backchannels ("mm-hmm," "right") and proactive turn claims that can contribute relevant content before the speaker yields the conversational floor. Built on streaming ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) and incremental semantics, RESPOND continuously predicts both when and how to interject, enabling fluid, listener-aware dialogue. A defining feature is its designer-facing controllability: two orthogonal dials, Backchannel Intensity (frequency of acknowledgments) and Turn Claim Aggressiveness (depth and assertiveness of early contributions), can be tuned to match the etiquette of contexts ranging from rapid ideation to reflective counseling. By coupling predictive orchestration with explicit control, RESPOND offers a practical path toward conversational agents that adapt their conversational footprint to social expectations, advancing the design of more natural and engaging voice interfaces.
title RESPOND: Responsive Engagement Strategy for Predictive Orchestration and Dialogue
topic Human-Computer Interaction
H.5.2
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.21682