Abstract
This article reports the development of a tool for examining the social and cognitive processes of people involved in a conversational interaction. Research on how people process utterances while they are actually engaged in an interaction has been extremely rare. To that end, we have developed a conversational bot (computer program designed to mimic human communication) with which participants can chat in a format similar to instant messaging. This program allows for the recording of comprehension speed, and it can be interfaced with secondary tasks (e.g., lexical decisions) in order to examine online conversational processing. Additional research possibilities with this program are discussed.
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This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (0131877) and the Ball State University Icommunication initiative, awarded to the first author. Copies of the software may be acquired at a minimal cost by contacting Linda Swartz Ritchie, Academic Research and Sponsored Programs, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306-0155 (e-mail, oarsp@bsu.edu; phone, 765-285-1600; fax, 765-285-1624).
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Holtgraves, T., Han, TL. A procedure for studying online conversational processing using a chat bot. Behav Res 39, 156–163 (2007). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03192855
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03192855