{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/120270"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/120270","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Semantic-prosodic correlates of backchannel utterances in human-computer dialog","abstract":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2023-09-01 without embargo terms","abstract_html":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2023-09-01 without embargo terms","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Chandler, Ryan Lee"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Informatics","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Shih, Chilin","Hasegawa-Johnson, Mark","Girju, Roxana","Dell, Gary","Hummel, John"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2023,"date_issued":"2023-05","date_published":"2023-05","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:57Z","subjects":["Prosody","Backchannels","Back Channels"],"languages":["en","eng"],"rights":["Copyright 2023 Ryan Lee Chandler"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120270","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Shih, Chilin","Hasegawa-Johnson, Mark","Girju, Roxana","Dell, Gary","Hummel, John"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Chandler, Ryan Lee"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2023-05","2023-04-19"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text","Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Informatics"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Prosody","Backchannels","Back Channels"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en","eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2023 Ryan Lee Chandler"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120270"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2023-09-01 without embargo terms","The student, Ryan Chandler, accepted the attached license on 2023-04-14 at 21:27.","The student, Ryan Chandler, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2023-04-14 at 21:40.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2023-04-19 at 15:51.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #18993 on 2023-09-01 at 17:08:45","Backchannels, words like “uh-huh” and “yeah” in English, serve to provide feedback from listeners to speakers without stopping the speaker from continuing their current utterance or holding the floor. While the function of backchannels to communicate agreement, belief, concern, interest, understanding, and acknowledgement has been identified in former research, there has been little research into how the manner of their articulation translates into these perceived meanings. This dissertation examines these connections between prosody and semantics. An audio corpus of the backchannel utterances “uh-huh” and “yeah” has been constructed to support this research. The corpus features voice actors purposefully inflecting backchannels across a range of semantic dimensions. Acoustic features of pitch, duration, energy, and the pitch energy synchrony are extracted from these samples. A set of predictive models based on multiple linear regression is developed. Significant features are then used to build a minimalist synthesis model. Synthetic backchannels are created using this synthesis model and are then evaluated by other human subjects. In addition to synthesis, a proposed prosodic sub-language is investigated, and several rules of backchannel prosody are proposed that may align to and be grounded in existing research in the field of embodied cognition. The research identifies key features of backchannel prosody that act as relatively strong semantic correlates. And, that these featural guideposts can be modeled and modulated in such a way as to reliably encode semantic intent into the sample backchannels through prosody alone."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Semantic-prosodic correlates of backchannel utterances in human-computer dialog"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Shih, Chilin","Hasegawa-Johnson, Mark","Girju, Roxana","Dell, Gary","Hummel, John"],"dc:creator":["Chandler, Ryan Lee"],"dc:date":["2023-05","2023-04-19"],"dc:description":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2023-09-01 without embargo terms","The student, Ryan Chandler, accepted the attached license on 2023-04-14 at 21:27.","The student, Ryan Chandler, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2023-04-14 at 21:40.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2023-04-19 at 15:51.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #18993 on 2023-09-01 at 17:08:45","Backchannels, words like “uh-huh” and “yeah” in English, serve to provide feedback from listeners to speakers without stopping the speaker from continuing their current utterance or holding the floor. While the function of backchannels to communicate agreement, belief, concern, interest, understanding, and acknowledgement has been identified in former research, there has been little research into how the manner of their articulation translates into these perceived meanings. This dissertation examines these connections between prosody and semantics. An audio corpus of the backchannel utterances “uh-huh” and “yeah” has been constructed to support this research. The corpus features voice actors purposefully inflecting backchannels across a range of semantic dimensions. Acoustic features of pitch, duration, energy, and the pitch energy synchrony are extracted from these samples. A set of predictive models based on multiple linear regression is developed. Significant features are then used to build a minimalist synthesis model. Synthetic backchannels are created using this synthesis model and are then evaluated by other human subjects. In addition to synthesis, a proposed prosodic sub-language is investigated, and several rules of backchannel prosody are proposed that may align to and be grounded in existing research in the field of embodied cognition. The research identifies key features of backchannel prosody that act as relatively strong semantic correlates. And, that these featural guideposts can be modeled and modulated in such a way as to reliably encode semantic intent into the sample backchannels through prosody alone."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120270"],"dc:language":["en","eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2023 Ryan Lee Chandler"],"dc:subject":["Prosody","Backchannels","Back Channels"],"dc:title":["Semantic-prosodic correlates of backchannel utterances in human-computer dialog"],"dc:type":["text","Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Informatics"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:57Z"}