Keynote speaker – Benjamin R. Cowan

Keynote title: Perspective Taking, Partner Models and User Behaviour in Conversational Interface Interaction

Abstract: Design is critical in supporting and informing our perceptions of conversational interfaces as dialogue partners (i.e. our partner models), which are commonly used to inform perspective taking in dialogue. My keynote will explore the dimensions relevant to partner models, investigating how conversational interface design shapes these perceptions. I’ll discuss how these models, as well as work on perspective taking more generally, are key to helping us to better understand our language interactions with these types of conversational partners.

About the keynote speaker: Benjamin R. Cowan is Professor of Human Computer Interaction and Conversational Informatics at University College Dublin’s School of Information & Communication Studies in Ireland. He completed his undergraduate studies in Psychology & Business Studies (2006) as well as his PhD in Usability Engineering (2011) at the University of Edinburgh. His research lies at the juncture between psychology, human-computer interaction and communication systems in investigating what drives user language behaviour in social, collaborative and communicative technology interactions. Prof. Cowan is the co-founder and co-director of the HCI@UCD group, one of the largest Human-Computer Interaction groups in Europe. He is also Co-Principal investigator in the SFI funded ADAPT Centre, a world leading €90+ million Research Centre on AI driven content technologies, where he leads the Interaction and Control research strand. Prof. Cowan is also the co-founder of ACM SIGCHI International Conferences Series on Conversational User Interfaces (ACM CUI). He has also been involved in the ACM CHI conference, having acted as Associate Chair (AC-2017-2018; 2021) and Subcommittee Chair (SC- 2022; 2023) of the Understanding People: Theory, Concepts, Methods Subcommittee.