A Corpus Analysis of Spoken Smart-Home Interactions with Older Users

Abstract

In this paper, we present the collection and analysis of a spoken dialogue corpus obtained from interactions of older and younger users
\nwith a smart-home system. Our aim is to identify the amount and the origin of linguistic differences in the way older and younger users
\naddress the system. In addition, we investigate changes in the users’ linguistic behaviour after exposure to the system. The results show
\nthat the two user groups differ in their speaking style as well as their vocabulary. In contrast to younger users, who adapt their speaking
\nstyle to the expected limitations of the system, older users tend to use a speaking style that is closer to human-human communication in
\nterms of sentence complexity and politeness. However, older users are far less easy to stereotype than younger users.