NewsWise: Bot gives nonnative speakers the floor in videoconferencing

NewsWise: Bot gives nonnative speakers the floor in videoconferencing. “Xiaoyan Li, a doctoral student in the field of information science, used multilingual groups to test out the helpful bot – called a conversational agent – which was programmed to intervene after native speakers took six consecutive turns. The agent enabled nonnative speakers to break into the conversation, increasing their participation from 12% to 17% of all words spoken. While people who did not have English as a first language generally found the agent to be helpful, native speakers thought the intrusions were distracting and unnecessary.”