Multimodal Feedback Signaling in Finnish

摘要

This paper discusses multimodal feedback signalling in Finnish first encounter conversations, especially the use of head nodding to signal shared understanding of the presented information. The goal of the paper is to study the correlation between gestures and speech, and to build a model to describe to which extent head movements correlate with verbal feedback. We distinguish single and repeated nodding, as well as up-nods and down-nods, and hypothesise that down-nods are used as backchannels while up-nods signal unexpected information.