Research by Robbert-Jan Beun

Main interests

Communication, dialogue modeling, digital assistance, intelligent and social interfaces, virtual coaching, sleep, discourse analysis, pragmatics, multimodality.

See also www.communiceren.nu (in Dutch and in progress).

Professional career

Degrees

1983 Electrical Engineer (M.A.) Technische Universiteit Eindhoven > TUE
1989 Ph.D. Katholieke Universiteit Brabant > KUB

Employment

1984 - 1999	Researcher at the Institute for Perception Research/Center for Human System Interaction > IPO
1999 - 2000	Assistant Professor at the Eindhoven University (Faculty of Technology Management > TM )
2000 - ...	Assistant Professor at the University Utrecht (Institute of Information and Computing Sciences > ICS )

Main projects

1985 - 1988	Identification of Communicative Functions in Information Dialogues (PhD-project)
1989 - 1998	Dialogue Management and Knowledge Acquisition (DenK) in collaboration with Tilburg University, Eindhoven University and IPO

Other projects

Intelligent Agents for Crisis Management (ICIS-project with Jurriaan van Diggelen, Peter Werkhoven and Rogier van Eijk, Januari, 1, 2007 - Februari, 1, 2009)

Publications

M.A. Thesis en Dissertation

Beun, R.J. (1984) PLANNER: Ontwerp en Implementatie van een Systeem voor het Genereren van Dialooghandelingen. IPO rapport 472. (M.A. Thesis)

Beun, R.J. (1989) The Recognition of Declarative Questions in Information Dialogues. University of Tilburg. (Dissertation)

Papers and Reports

> Speech Acts (Experiments)
> Speech Acts (Theory)
> Dialogue
> Denk-System
> Object Reference
> Multimodality
> Embodied Agents
> Miscellaneous

Speech Acts (Experiments)

Beun, R.J. (1985) The Function of Repetitions in Information Dialogues. IPO Annual Progress Report, 20. p.91-98.

Beun. R.J. (1989) Declarative Question Acts: Two Experiments on Identification. In: M.M. Taylor, F. Neel & D.G. Bouwhuis (eds.) The Structure of Multimodal Dialogues. Amsterdam: North Holland. p.313-321.

Beun, R.J. (1990) The recognition of Dutch Declarative Questions. Journal of Pragmatics, 14. p.39-56.

Beun, R.J. (1990) Declarative Questions in Discourse. IPO Annual Progress Report, 25. Eindhoven: Instituut voor Perceptie Onderzoek. p.80-89

Beun, R.J. (2000) Context and Form: Declarative or Interrogative, that is the Question. In: W. Black & H.C. Bunt (eds.) Abduction, Belief and Context in Dialogue: Studies in Computational Pragmatics Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Speech Acts (Theory)

Beun, R.J. (1989) Communicative Acts and Mental State Change. IPO Annual Progress Report, 24. p.95-104.

Beun, R.J. (1990) Speech Acts and Mental States. In: Y. Wilks & P. McKevitt (eds.) Proceedings of the 5th Rocky Mountains Conference, Las Cruces, New Mexico. p.75-80.

Beun, R.J. (1994) Mental State Recognition and Communicative Effects. Journal of Pragmatics, 21. p.191-214.

Beun, R.J. (1997) The use of Default Theory in Speech Act Recognition. In: G. Brewka & E. Weydert (eds.) Proceedings of the Third Dutch German Workshop on Nonmonotonic Reasoning Techniques and their Applications. Saarbruecken: Max Planck Institute for Computer Science. p. 168-178.

Dialogue

Beun, R.J. & Bunt, H.C. (1987) Investigating Linguistic Behaviour in Information Dialogues with a Computer. IPO Annual Progress Report, 22. p.77-86.

Beun, R.J. (1993) A Framework for Speech Act Generation in Cooperative Dialogue. 4th International Pragmatics Conference, Kobe, Japan. p.82.

Beun, R.J. (1994) Rules in Dialogue. In: M.D. Brouwer-Janse & T.L. Harrington (eds.) Human-Machine Communication for Educational Systems Design Dialogue and Instruction. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. p.79-88.

Beun, R.J., Baker, M. & Reiner, M. (1995) Editor’s Introduction. In: Beun, R.J., Baker, M. & Reiner, M. (eds.) Dialogue and Instruction. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. p.1-12

Beun, R.J. (1996) Speech Act Generation in Cooperative Dialogue. Proceedings Twente Workshop on Language Technology 11, Twente University, Enschede. p.71-79.

Beun, R.J. (2000) Moves in Dialogue. In: M.M. Taylor, F. Neel & D.G. Bouwhuis (eds.) The Structure of Multimodal Dialogue. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. p.239-247

Beun, R.J. (2001) On the Generation of Coherent Dialogue: A Computational Approach. Pragmatics and Cognition, 9(1). p.37-68. (Also presented at the International Pragmatics Conference, Budapest, July, 2000).

Beun, R.J., Baker, M. & Reiner, M. (eds.) (1985) Dialogue and Instruction. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Van Deemter, C., Beun, R.J. & Vet, J. de (1995) Dialogue systems: Taxonomy and Architecture. IPO Memorandum no. 430.

The DenK-system

Beun, R.J. (1993) The DenK Program: Modelling Pragmatics in Natural Language Interfaces. Proceedings Twente Workshop on Language Technology 5. Enschede: University of Twente.

Beun, R.J. (1994) De Keuze voor het DenK-domein. DenK-rapport 94/03

Beun, R.J. (1994) Introduction to the Electron Microscope. DenK-rapport 94/03.

Beun, R.J. (1995) De Electronenmicroscoop en de gevolgen voor de DenK-deelprojecten. DenK-rapport 95/08.

Beun, R.J. (1998) The DenK-system: Building Generic Principles in User-Interface Technology. La Lettre de l'IA, 134/136, p. 115-120.

Beun, R.J. & Ahn, R.M.C. (eds.) (1993) DenK Dialoogvoering en Kennisopbouw. Overzichtsrapport eerste fase, mei 1989 - mei 1993. Tilburg/Eindhoven: Rapport Samenwerkingsorgaan Brabantse Universiteiten.

Beun, R.J. & Kievit, L. (1995) Resolving Definite Expressions in DenK. DenK-rapport 95/16.

Beun, R.J. & Piwek, P. (1997) Pragmatic Features in DenK: Pragtags. DenK-rapport 97/27.

Beun, R.J. & Ahn, R.M.C. (1995) The DenK-system: Modelling Pragmatic Issues in Interaction with Machines. IPO Annual Progress Report, 29. p. 87-94.

Ahn, R.M.C. & Beun, R.J. (1991) Voortgangsverslag integratieproject DenK: Augustus 1990 Januari 1991. ITK Research Memo no. 6. Tilburg: Instituut voor Taal- en Kennistechnologie. (tevens verschenen als IPO rapport, no. 785.)

Ahn, R.M.C., Beun, R.J., Borghuis, T., Bunt, H.C. & van Overveld, C.W.A.M. (1995) The DenK-architecture: a Fundamental Approach to User-Interfaces. Artificial Intelligence Review Journal, 8(2). p.431-445. (also published in: Mc Kevitt, P. (ed.) (1995) Language and Vision Integration, Part I. Boston: Kluwer.)

Bunt, H.C. & Beun, R.J. (1992) DenK: Dialogue Management and Knowledge Acquisition. Think Quarterly 1(1). p.15-24.

Bunt, H.C. & Beun, R.J. (1993) DenK: Dialogue Management and Knowledge Acquisition. In: P. Brezillon and V. Stefanuk (eds.): Proceedings of the East-West Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Moscow, Russia, September 7-9, 1993. p.108-111.

Bunt, H.C., Ahn, R.M.C., Beun, R.J., Borghuis, T., & van Overveld, C.W.A.M. (1995) Cooperative Multimodal Communication in the Denk Project. In: Bunt et al., 1998a.

Object Reference

Beun, R.J. & Kievit, L. (1996) Resolving Definite Expressions in Dialogue. 5th International Pragmatics Conference, Mexico City.

Beun, R.J. & Cremers, A.H.M. (1998) Object Reference in a Shared Domain of Conversation. Pragmatics and Cognition, 6(1). p. 111-142.

Beun, R.J. & Cremers, A.H.M. (2001) Multimodal Reference to Objects: An Empirical Approach. In: Bunt & Beun 2001 p.64-86

Kievit, L., Piwek, P., Beun, R.J. & Bunt, H.C. (2001) Multimodal Cooperative Resolution of Referential Expressions in the DenK-system. In: Bunt & Beun (2001) p.197-214

Piwek, P., Beun, R.J. & Cremers, A. (1995) Deictic use of Dutch Demonstratives. IPO Annual Progress Report, 30. p.99-108.

Piwek, P. & Beun, R.J. (2002) Multimodal Referential Acts in a Dialogue Game. From Empirical Investigations to Algorithms. International Workshop on Information Presentation and Natural Multimodal Dialogue. Verona, Italy 14-15 December 2001.

Multimodality

Beun, R.J. & Bunt, H.C. (2001) Multimodal Cooperative Communication. In: Bunt & Beun (2001) p.1-10

Bunt, H.C., Ahn, R.M.C., Kievit, L., Piwek, P., Verlinden, M., Beun, R.J., Borghuis, T. & Overveld, C.W.A.M. (1998) Cooperative Dialogue with the Multimodal DenK-system. In: Bunt et al., 1998.

Bunt, H.C., Beun, R.J. & Borghuis, T. (eds.) (1998) Multimodal Human Computer Communication: Systems Techniques and Experiments. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

Bunt, H.C., & Beun, R.J. (eds.) (2001) Cooperative Multimodal Communication. Berlin: Springer-Verlag

Embodied Agents

Beun, R.J., de Vos, E., & Witteman, C. (2003). Embodied conversational agents: Effects on memory performance and anthropomorphisation. In: Rist, T., Aylett, R., Ballin., D. & Rickel, J. (Eds.) Intelligent Virtual Agents. LNAI 2792. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. 315-319.

Miscellaneous

Swerts, M., Wichmann, A. & Beun, R.J. (1996) Filled pauses as markers of discourse structure. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP-96), Oct. 3-6, 1996, Philadelphia, PA, USA. p.725-728.

Masthoff, J.F.M., Beun, R.J. & Bouwhuis, D.G. (1997) An exploratory evaluation of a videophone with elderly subjects. Report Institute of Gerontechnology Eindhoven. (Confidential)

Siepe, H., Beun, R.J., Egger, F.N. de Greef, H.P. & IJsselsteijn, W.A. (1999) Tele-applications for the home (a literature survey). IPO-report, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (Confidential)

Huang, Z., Hou, Y., Beun, R.J., Deng, Y. & Liang, J. (2000) Design and Implementation of a Tele-interaction System Based on the OP-Channel. Proceedings of the Fourth Int. Conf. on High Performance Computing in the Asia-Pacific Region. 14-17 May, 2000. Beijing, China.

Slides for education (temp)

OC

Whenever you will have a nice 2-person holiday in Cadzand-Bad (The Netherlands), this is the place to be: www.jacoba.org.

rj@cs.uu.nl May, 01, 2002