Sage Concept Grants: GailBot
GailBot is the winner of the £15,000 Sage Concept Grant in 2023.
Saul Albert, Lecturer in Social Science, Loughborough University
Muhammad Umair, PhD, Human Interaction Lab, Tufts University
Dr. Julia Mertens, Senior Scientist, Boston Fusion
Prof. J.P. De Ruiter, Director, Human Interaction Lab, Tufts University
What It Is
GailBot is an automated dialogue transcription tool that uses machine learning and heuristics to annotate essential paralinguistic details of talk such as overlaps, sound stretches, speed changes, and timed silences.
What Problem It Solves
Human interaction research relies on detailed transcriptions of language use (a system developed by conversation analyst Gail Jefferson, after whom GailBot is named) that are very slow and expensive to produce at scale. Pragmatic features of dialogue such as overlaps, intonation, and silences convey important information about interaction that is discarded by most automated speech-to-text systems, which are usually based on monological and text-first data sources. GailBot makes it possible to produce first-pass detailed transcripts of dialogue at scale.
What Benefits It Offers
GailBot is the first automatic transcription system designed to produce detailed transcripts of dialogue using Gail Jefferson's conversation analytic annotation system.
It includes a default suite of modules that deal with annotation of e.g,. turn-taking, overlap, sound stretches, and other basic features.
It also adopts a modular structure that enables researchers to 'plug in' new components to annotate features that are specific to their analytic goals.
GailBot produces standard data formats such as json/CSV/and Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)-compatible digital transcripts that are compatible with all major dialogue annotation systems.
GailBot is currently working with conversation analysts, discursive psychologists, and computational linguists who are interested in working out how they can use automated dialogue transcription in their workflows. If you are interested in giving feedback and developing cutting edge research tools - sign up on the GailBot website here: https://sites.tufts.edu/hilab/gailbot/
