Online dialogue support method, program for causing a processor to execute the support method, and online dialogue support system

Abstract

To provide a technology that proposes an utterance example having high psychological safety in online interaction.SOLUTION: A process executed by a CPU of a server that functions as an interaction support system comprises the steps of: acquiring (S610) an utterance uttered by a user of a terminal; analyzing (S620) the utterance; extracting (S630) an utterance having low psychological safety; extracting (S640) an utterance just before the utterance having the low psychological safety; extracting (S650) a similar utterance by performing matching between the last utterance and a past utterance; displaying (S670) the similar utterance on a terminal 11 when it is determined that psychological safety of the utterance right after the event is high (YES at step S660).SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 6

Description

[Technical Field]

[0001] The present disclosure relates to a technology for supporting online dialogue, and more particularly to a technology for suggesting statements that have high psychological safety. [Background technology]

[0002] There are known technologies for holding online conferences. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2017-215931 (Patent Document 1) discloses a "conference support system capable of improving the efficiency of conferences." This conference support system "inputs the content of comments made by the participants of the conference, determines the type of the corresponding comment based on the content of the comment input by the input unit, and outputs at least one of the content of the comment, an evaluation of the conference, or an evaluation of the participants based on the result of the determination by the determination unit" (see [Abstract]). [Prior art documents] [Patent documents]

[0003] [Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2017-215931 Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0004] There are various types of statements made in response to the other person's statements in a dialogue, and from the perspective of psychological safety, for example, they can be classified as statements that have high psychological safety or statements that do not (low psychological safety). In order to promote desirable communication, technology is needed that enables statements that have high psychological safety to be made in online dialogues.

[0005] The present disclosure has been made in consideration of the above-described background, and discloses a technology that enables statements with high psychological safety to be made in online conversations. [Means for solving the problem]

[0006] According to one embodiment, there is provided a method for supporting online conversations, the method including the steps of: a computer receiving a utterance from a first speaker to a second speaker in an online conversation; a computer converting the speech of the utterance into a character string; a computer analyzing the utterance; a computer accessing a database having one or more example utterances based on a result of the analysis; a computer extracting a desirable response to the utterance by the first speaker from the one or more example utterances based on the utterance of the first speaker; and a computer outputting the extracted example utterance to the second speaker.

[0007] According to one aspect, the method for supporting online dialogue further includes receiving a response from a second speaker to a utterance by the first speaker. The extracting step includes extracting a response to the utterance by the first speaker based on the response by the second speaker. The presenting step includes presenting the extracted example utterance to the second speaker after receiving an input of a response to the first speaker from the second speaker.

[0008] In one aspect, the presenting step includes the step of presenting an example utterance before a response is made from the second speaker to the first speaker.

[0009] In one aspect, the analyzing step includes determining whether the statements entered into the computer are psychologically safe.

[0010] In one aspect, the extracting step includes searching for past statements similar to the statement of the first speaker, and selecting a statement that is judged to be psychologically safe as a response to the past statement.

[0011] In one aspect, the database has a plurality of utterance examples. The selecting step includes a step of searching the plurality of utterance examples for an utterance example having a high similarity to an utterance by the first speaker. The outputting step includes a step of outputting the utterance example having a high similarity to the second speaker based on the utterance example having a high similarity found.

[0012] In one aspect, the plurality of utterance examples include publicly known utterance examples that are utterances with high psychological safety. The outputting step includes a step of outputting the publicly known utterance examples to the second speaker based on the fact that no utterance examples with high similarity have been extracted.

[0013] In one aspect, the outputting step includes a step of outputting a statement example having a high degree of similarity and a statement example that is considered to have high psychological safety as a statement in response to the statement example.

[0014] According to another embodiment, there is provided a program that causes a processor to execute any of the above-described support methods.

[0015] According to yet another embodiment, there is provided a system for supporting online interactions, the system comprising: a memory storing a program for implementing any one of the support methods described above; and a processor for executing the program.

[0016] According to an embodiment, statements with high psychological safety are promoted in online conversations.

[0017] The above and other objects, features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. [Brief explanation of the drawings]

[0018] [Figure 1] 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a schematic configuration and usage of a server 20. FIG. [Figure 2]FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the hardware configuration of a computer system 200. [Figure 3] FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of data storage on a hard disk 5 included in a computer system 200 functioning as a server 20. [Figure 4] 1 is a block diagram showing the functional configuration of a dialogue support system 100 that provides dialogue support functions to terminals 10 and 11. FIG. [Figure 5] FIG. 4 shows an example of a database 440 managed in a hard disk 5 of a server 20. [Figure 6] 1 is a flowchart showing a part of the processing executed by a CPU 1 of a server 20 that realizes a dialogue support system 100. [Figure 7] FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the data structure of a database 440 according to another aspect. [Figure 8] FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of the configuration of a database 440 according to another aspect. [Figure 9] 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a screen displayed on a monitor 8 of a computer system 200 that implements a terminal 10. FIG. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0019] Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In the following description, the same components are denoted by the same reference numerals. The names and functions of the components are also the same. Therefore, detailed description thereof will not be repeated.

[0020] <Summary of Features> In summary, the features of the present disclosure are as follows: when a first speaker makes a statement (e.g., asks a question) and a second speaker makes a statement in response to the first speaker's statement (e.g., gives a passive, unresponsive response), if it is determined that the second speaker's statement does not have high psychological safety, an example statement similar to the first speaker's statement is extracted from the first speaker's statement and a database of past statements. The extracted example statement does not need to exactly match the immediately preceding statement. The extraction is performed using, for example, AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology, but AI technology does not have to be used. For example, rule-based extraction may be performed.

[0021] In this embodiment, psychological safety refers to "a state in which a person can be confident that other team members will not reject or punish what he or she has said" (Edmondson) in organizational behavior. When psychological safety is high, a person who has a question or an idea can confident that the other person will accept it, and so can frankly express the question or idea.

[0022] The similar utterance examples are presented to the second speaker, who made the utterance with low psychological safety, as examples of utterances with high psychological safety. This allows the second speaker to know desirable utterance examples in response to utterances from the conversation partner (first speaker), which may promote behavioral improvement in online conversations.

[0023] Furthermore, when multiple utterance examples are registered in the utterance database, the second utterance example may be presented in descending order of similarity to the utterance of the first speaker. By presenting multiple utterance examples, the second speaker can learn about various utterance examples and acquire richer communication skills.

[0024] Furthermore, in addition to examples of statements with high psychological safety, examples of statements that are judged to be low in psychological safety may also be presented. Since examples of statements with high psychological safety and examples of statements with low psychological safety are displayed, the second speaker can recognize examples of statements with low psychological safety as negative examples.

[0025] The configuration of server 20 according to an embodiment will be described with reference to Fig. 1. Fig. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of the schematic configuration and usage of server 20. Server 20 communicates with terminals 10, 11, 12, etc. via network 190.

[0026] The server 20 includes a dialogue support system 100. The dialogue support system 100 includes a utterance database (DB) 110, an analysis unit 120, a determination unit 130, and an output unit 140. The dialogue support system 100 is realized in an application used in web dialogues, such as Microsoft Teams (registered trademark), Zoom, or other web conferencing applications.

[0027] The utterance database 110 includes utterances made by users of the terminal 10 and registered utterance examples. The utterances made by users may be either voice data or character string data extracted from the voice data by voice recognition. The registered utterance examples may include a certain utterance and a response utterance to the certain utterance. The utterance examples may include utterances that have actually taken place via the server 20, and utterances that are known to the public outside the server 20 and that have been entered and registered by users (operators, managers, etc.) of the server 20 as utterances that may be useful for responses.

[0028] The analysis unit 120 analyzes a utterance based on the voice data of the utterance received by the terminal 10, 11. For example, the analysis unit 120 converts the voice data into a character string using well-known voice recognition technology and analyzes the character string through morphological analysis. In a certain aspect, the analysis unit 120 may use the result of the analysis of the character string to extract terms (e.g., "It's impossible," "Everything is going well," "We'll make it in time," etc.) for determining whether the psychological safety of the utterance is high or low.

[0029] The judgment unit 130 judges whether the content of the statement given from the terminal 11 in response to the statement is a statement with high psychological safety, based on the registered statement examples registered in the statement database 110 and the statement given from the terminal 10.

[0030] As an example, in a certain situation, the determination unit 130 determines whether the content of the reply made by the user of terminal 11 in response to a statement (for example, a question) made by the user of terminal 10 is a statement with high or low psychological safety based on the analysis result of the reply. If the determination unit 130 determines that the content of the reply is a statement with low psychological safety, it searches the statement database 110 for example statements similar to the reply made by the user of terminal 11.

[0031] The output unit 140 generates data for outputting the retrieved utterance examples with high psychological safety and transmits the data to the terminal 11. The terminal 11 may display the utterance examples with high psychological safety based on the data, or may output the utterance examples with high psychological safety as audio. The user can know the utterance examples output by the terminal 11. This allows the user to make utterances (answers) with higher psychological safety than previous utterances when making similar utterances (answers) in the future.

[0032] As another example, in another aspect, when a user of terminal 10 makes a statement (for example, a question) to a user of terminal 11, analysis unit 120 performs speech recognition processing on the statement and converts it into a string of characters using the speech recognition results. Analysis unit 120 analyzes the content of the statement by morphological analysis of the string of characters, etc. Determination unit 130 accesses statement database 110 using the analysis results of the content of the statement and searches for statements similar to the statement made by the user of terminal 10. If the similar statement is registered in statement database 110, determination unit 130 selects the similar statement as an output candidate to terminal 11. From the selected output candidates, determination unit 130 determines a statement with a high level of psychological safety as the one to be output to terminal 11.

[0033] The output unit 140 generates data for outputting the utterances determined by the determination unit 130 to be output to the terminal 11, and transmits the data to the terminal 11. The terminal 11 displays the utterances that have high psychological safety based on the data. The user of the terminal 11 can refer to the display and utter an answer that has high psychological safety in response to the utterance (question) made by the user of the terminal 10.

[0034] The network 190 may be either the Internet or an intranet, or a combination of the Internet and an intranet. The form of communication in the network 190 may be either wired or wireless.

[0035] According to one embodiment, examples of statements that have a high level of psychological safety are presented to the user of the device, allowing the user to recognize examples of statements that are considered to have a high level of psychological safety. This is expected to improve the user's behavior by responding to statements made by the other party with statements that have a high level of psychological safety. The exchange of statements that have a high level of psychological safety is also expected to improve productivity.

[0036] [Computer system configuration] The configuration of a computer system 200, which is one aspect of an information processing device, will be described with reference to Fig. 2. Fig. 2 is a block diagram showing the hardware configuration of the computer system 200. The terminals 10 and 11 and the server 20 are each realized by the computer system 200.

[0037] The computer system 200 mainly comprises the following components: a CPU 1 that executes programs; a mouse 2 and keyboard 3 that receive instructions input by the user of the computer system 200; a RAM 4 that volatilely stores data generated by the CPU 1 executing the programs or data input via the mouse 2 or keyboard 3; a hard disk 5 that nonvolatilely stores data; an optical disk drive 6; a communication interface (I / F) 7; and a monitor 8. The components are interconnected by a data bus. A CD-ROM 9 or other optical disk is inserted into the optical disk drive 6.

[0038] Processing in the computer system 200 is realized by software executed by each piece of hardware and the CPU 1. Such software may be pre-stored on the hard disk 5. Alternatively, the software may be stored on a CD-ROM 9 or other recording medium and distributed as a computer program. Alternatively, the software may be provided as a downloadable application program by an information provider connected to the Internet. Such software is read from the recording medium by an optical disk drive 6 or other reading device, or downloaded via the communication interface 7, and then temporarily stored on the hard disk 5. The software is read from the hard disk 5 by the CPU 1 and stored in the RAM 4 in the form of an executable program. The CPU 1 executes the program.

[0039] Each component constituting the computer system 200 shown in FIG. 2 is common. Therefore, one essential part of the technical idea of ​​the present disclosure can be said to be software stored in the RAM 4, hard disk 5, CD-ROM 9, or other recording medium, or software downloadable via a network. The recording medium may include a non-transitory computer-readable data recording medium. Note that the operation of each piece of hardware in the computer system 200 is well known, so detailed description will not be repeated.

[0040] The recording medium is not limited to a CD-ROM, a FD (Flexible Disk), or a hard disk, but may also be a medium that carries a program in a fixed manner, such as a magnetic tape, a cassette tape, an optical disk (MO (Magnetic Optical Disc) / MD (Mini Disc) / DVD (Digital Versatile Disc)), an IC (Integrated Circuit) card (including a memory card), an SSD (Solid State Drive), an optical card, a mask ROM, an EPROM (Electronically Programmable Read-Only Memory), an EEPROM (Electronically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory), or a semiconductor memory such as a flash ROM.

[0041] The program referred to here includes not only a program that can be directly executed by a CPU, but also a source program, a compressed program, an encrypted program, and the like.

[0042] <Data Structure> The data structure of the server 20 will be described with reference to Fig. 3. Fig. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of data storage on a hard disk 5 included in a computer system 200 functioning as the server 20. The hard disk 5 stores a utterance database 110. The utterance database 110 includes tables 310 and 320.

[0043] Table 310 holds examples of dialogues that include statements that are considered to have low psychological safety. More specifically, table 310 holds, in association with each other, statements (e.g., questions, confirmation messages, etc.) made by a terminal (e.g., terminal 10) that made the first statement, and replies to those statements (e.g., statements made by the user of terminal 11). As an example, in a certain situation, if the user of terminal 10 asks the user of terminal 11, "Will this be completed as planned?", and the user of terminal 11 replies, "It's impossible," table 310 holds the character strings for that question and the replying statement.

[0044] Table 320 stores examples of past conversations that are considered to have high psychological safety. More specifically, if a user utters, "Do you think it will be completed as planned?" on one terminal, and another user replies, from another terminal, "We'll make it in time if we have the budget," the reply is determined by the determination unit 130 to be a utterance with high psychological safety. The determination unit 130 accesses the utterance database 110 and adds the utterance and reply to table 320.

[0045] <Detailed configuration> The functions of the dialogue support system 100 will be described in detail with reference to Fig. 4. Fig. 4 is a block diagram showing the functional configuration of the dialogue support system 100 that provides dialogue support functions to the terminals 10 and 11. The dialogue support system 100 includes an input unit 410, a transcription unit 420, an analysis unit 430, a database 440, a screen generation unit 450, and an output unit 460.

[0046] The input unit 410 receives input of speech audio signals transmitted by each of the terminals 10 and 11. The input unit 410 is realized by, for example, an input terminal connected to the network 190 or other receiving interface.

[0047] The transcription unit 420 converts the audio signal into a character string. The analysis unit 430 analyzes the character string, determines whether the comment has high psychological safety based on predetermined criteria, and classifies the comment. An example of the predetermined criteria may include comments that have been designated or classified in advance by an administrator of the server 20 as comments with high or low psychological safety.

[0048] The database 440 stores the defined criteria and each statement newly converted into a character string by the transcription unit 420, as well as classification information indicating the level of psychological safety of the statement. Furthermore, the database 440 stores statements already known as statements with high psychological safety or statements designated by the administrator of the server 20, examples of statements that are considered to have low psychological safety, and notification messages prepared in advance for the terminals 10 and 11 to encourage desirable statements.

[0049] The screen generation unit 450 uses the results of the analysis unit 430 to generate data for displaying a screen on the terminals 10 and 11 connected to the server 20. The screen includes, as an example, a question received by the viewer of the screen (e.g., the user of terminal 11), an answer given by the viewer, and example statements that are considered to be more desirable (i.e., have higher psychological safety) as answers to questions similar to the question in question. Displaying the example statements allows the viewer to learn more desirable example statements, which can increase psychological safety in subsequent interactions. Furthermore, if the more desirable example statements are displayed before the viewer utters an answer, the viewer can immediately reply with an answer that is considered to have high psychological safety.

[0050] The output unit 460 transmits the data to the corresponding terminal. For example, if a user of terminal 10 poses a question to a user of terminal 11, the psychological safety of the answer from the user of terminal 11 becomes an issue. Therefore, the output unit 460 transmits the data to terminal 11. The monitor 8 of the computer system 200 that implements terminal 11 displays a screen based on the data. For example, the screen may be displayed after the user of terminal 11 makes a statement, or it may be displayed before the user of terminal 11 makes a statement in response to a statement from terminal 10.

[0051] <Speech history> The data structure of server 20 will be further described with reference to Fig. 5. Fig. 5 is a diagram showing an example of database 440 managed in hard disk 5 of server 20. Database 440 holds table 510. Table 510 includes message 511, message author 512, and time 513.

[0052] Speech 511 is a utterance made by a user of a terminal (for example, terminal 10 or terminal 11) accessing server 20. Speaker 512 identifies the user who made the utterance. Speaker 512 is, for example, an email address unique to a user who logs into dialogue support system 100 from a terminal, but other identification information (for example, a user number) may also be registered as speaker 512. Time 513 specifies the time when the utterance was made.

[0053] When the dialogue support system 100 detects a utterance from each terminal, the transcription unit 420 converts the speech into a character string, and the utterance 511 obtained by analyzing the character string is stored in a table 510 on the hard disk 5. The table 510 may be stored in an external storage device connected to the server 20.

[0054] <Control Structure> The control structure of the server 20 will be described with reference to Fig. 6. Fig. 6 is a flowchart showing part of the processing executed by the CPU 1 of the server 20 that realizes the dialogue support system 100.

[0055] In step S610, CPU 1 acquires a utterance made by the user of terminal 11 via input unit 410. For example, when the user of terminal 10 asks a question to the user of terminal 11, the answer to the question may be the utterance made by the user of terminal 11. Thereafter, CPU 1, functioning as transcription unit 420, converts the audio signal of the utterance into a character string.

[0056] In step S620, CPU 1, functioning as analysis unit 430, analyzes the comment. The analysis method is not particularly limited. Furthermore, CPU 1, functioning as screen generation unit 450, generates data for displaying a screen on terminal 11. CPU 1 transmits the data to terminal 11 via output unit 460. Based on the data, monitor 8 of terminal 11 displays a screen representing a comment that exhibits low psychological safety. By viewing the screen, the user of terminal 11 can know that their comment exhibits low psychological safety.

[0057] In step S630, the CPU 1 functioning as the analysis unit 430 extracts comments with low psychological safety.

[0058] In step S640, CPU 1, functioning as analysis unit 430, accesses database 440 and extracts the comment immediately before the comment with low psychological safety. For example, if a user of terminal 10 makes a comment and a user of terminal 11 makes a comment in response to the comment, and if the response is determined to have low psychological safety, CPU 1 extracts the comment made by terminal 10 as the comment immediately before the comment with low psychological safety.

[0059] In step S650, CPU 1 as analysis section 430 accesses database 440, matches the immediately preceding comment with past comments, and extracts similar comments.

[0060] In step S660, CPU 1 determines whether the statement immediately following the extracted similar statement has high psychological safety. This determination is made, for example, based on whether the analysis result of the statement contains a term that is considered to have high psychological safety. If CPU 1 determines that the immediately following statement has high psychological safety (YES in step S660), it switches control to step S670. Otherwise (NO in step S660), CPU 1 switches control to step S680.

[0061] In step S670, CPU 1 displays the similar comment on terminal 11. More specifically, CPU 1, functioning as screen generation unit 450, generates data for displaying the similar comment on the terminal, and functioning as output unit 460, transmits the data to terminal 11. Upon receiving the data, terminal 11 displays on monitor 8 examples of comments that are considered to have high psychological safety among comments similar to those made by the user of terminal 11. This allows the user to know which comments are considered to have high psychological safety, which can increase psychological safety in future interactions.

[0062] In step S680, CPU 1 determines whether there is a next utterance that can be the subject of analysis. This determination is made, for example, based on the result of the analysis by analysis unit 430, which determines whether the character string includes multiple utterances. If the character string corresponding to the voice of the utterance includes multiple utterances, CPU 1 can determine that there is a next utterance. If CPU 1 determines that there is a next utterance (YES in step S680), it returns control to step S620. If not (NO in step S680), CPU 1 ends the process.

[0063] <Modification> An example of another aspect will be described with reference to Fig. 7. Fig. 7 is a diagram showing the data structure of database 440 according to another aspect.

[0064] In a given situation, multiple statements may be stored in the database 440 as statements with high psychological safety. In this case, if more statements than necessary are displayed on a terminal as statements with high psychological safety, the user of the terminal may be confused. Therefore, in a given situation, statements similar to the immediately preceding statement may be displayed to the terminal user preferentially if their similarity is equal to or exceeds a predetermined reference value. In this embodiment, the similarity is calculated using, for example, the Levenshtein distance, the Jaro-Winkler distance, or other known methods.

[0065] As shown in FIG. 7, database 440 of a dialogue support system 100 according to another aspect stores table 710 in addition to table 310. Table 710 includes examples of past dialogues that are considered to have high psychological safety. That is, table 710 includes areas 711, 712, and 713. Area 711 stores utterances similar to utterances made by the user of the terminal. Area 712 stores the similarity between the utterances made by the user and the similar utterances. Area 713 stores candidate utterances that may be suggested to the user of the terminal.

[0066] For example, when the utterance "Will it be completed as planned?" shown in table 310 is given by the user of terminal 10 to the user of terminal 11, and the dialogue support system 100 is set to display two dialogue examples from past dialogue examples that are considered to have high psychological safety, the CPU 1 selects two similar utterances from table 710, "Will it be completed as planned?" and "Is everything going smoothly?" in descending order of similarity, extracts two utterances corresponding to the selected similar utterances from area 713, and displays the two extracted utterances on terminal 11. This allows the user of terminal 11 to check multiple utterances, and can respond with a utterance that has high psychological safety depending on the content of the dialogue.

[0067] <Publicly known statement> Another example will be described with reference to Fig. 8. In some situations, depending on the content of a utterance, there may be no highly similar utterances registered in the database. In such cases, well-known utterances that are widely known may be presented to the user of the terminal as utterance candidates that can be used in a response.

[0068] 8 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of database 440 according to another aspect. Database 440 includes table 810. Table 810 includes areas 811, 812, 813, and 814.

[0069] Area 811 stores the immediately preceding dialogue that triggers a dialogue containing a statement that is considered to have low psychological safety. Area 812 stores the user's statement that responded to the immediately preceding dialogue. Area 813 stores the identification information (real name, stage name, pen name, etc.) of the speaker of a well-known statement that is widely known in the world and includes a statement that is considered to have high psychological safety. Area 814 stores the statement. The well-known statement is registered in database 440 by the creator or administrator of dialogue support system 100.

[0070] According to table 810, even if there is no statement highly similar to a statement actually made by the terminal user (area 811), CPU 1 can extract a statement from well-known statements that are considered to have high psychological safety (area 814) and display the extracted statement on the terminal. This allows the user to know ideal statements that are widely known and considered to have high psychological safety, and can then respond based on the ideal statement.

[0071] <Screen example> An example of a screen display on the terminal 10 will be described with reference to Fig. 9. Fig. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of a screen displayed on the monitor 8 of the computer system 200 that implements the terminal 10. The monitor 8 displays the comments made by the user of the terminal 10 and recommended comments. This allows the user to compare their own comments with their ideal comments, and can improve the content of their future comments to make them more psychologically safe.

[0072] <Summary> Some of the technical features disclosed above can be summarized as follows:

[0073] [Configuration Example 1] According to one embodiment, there is provided a method for supporting online dialogue. This support method includes the steps of: a CPU 1 accepting a utterance from a first speaker (terminal 10) to a second speaker (terminal 11) in an online dialogue; a CPU 1 converting the speech of the utterance into a character string; a CPU 1 analyzing the utterance; a CPU 1 accessing a database (e.g., utterance database 110, database 440) having one or more utterance examples based on the analysis result; a CPU 1 extracting a desirable response to the utterance by the first speaker from the one or more utterance examples based on the utterance of the first speaker; and a CPU 1 outputting the extracted utterance example to terminal 11 of the second speaker.

[0074] [Configuration Example 2] According to a certain aspect, in addition to the above configuration examples, the method for supporting online dialogue further includes a step of receiving a response from a second speaker to a utterance by a first speaker. The extracting step includes a step of extracting a response to the utterance by the first speaker based on the response by the second speaker. The presenting step includes, after receiving an input of a response to the first speaker from the second speaker, presenting the extracted utterance example on the monitor 8 of the terminal 11 of the second speaker.

[0075] [Configuration Example 3] In one aspect, in addition to the above configuration example, the presenting step includes a step of presenting the example utterance on a monitor 8 used by the second speaker before the second speaker responds to the first speaker.

[0076] [Configuration Example 4] In a certain aspect, in addition to the above configuration example, the analyzing step includes a step of determining whether the comment input to the CPU 1 is psychologically safe.

[0077] [Configuration Example 5] In one aspect, in addition to the above configuration example, the extracting step includes a step of searching for past statements similar to the statement of the first speaker, and a step of selecting a statement that is judged to be psychologically safe as a response to the past statement.

[0078] [Configuration Example 6] In a certain aspect, in addition to the above configuration examples, the database has a plurality of utterance examples. The utterance examples include utterances extracted from dialogues previously held using the dialogue support system 100, or publicly known utterances input by an administrator of the dialogue support system 100. The selecting step includes a step of searching for utterance examples that have a high similarity to a utterance made by the first speaker from the plurality of utterance examples. The similarity is calculated by a known method. The outputting step includes a step of outputting utterance examples with a high similarity to the second speaker based on the utterance examples with a high similarity found. Alternatively, only utterance examples with a similarity exceeding a preset threshold may be selectively presented to the second speaker.

[0079] [Configuration Example 7] In a certain situation, in addition to the above configuration examples, the plurality of utterance examples include utterances that are publicly known as utterances with high psychological safety. The outputting step includes a step of displaying the publicly known utterance examples on the monitor of the terminal 11 of the second speaker based on the fact that no utterance examples with high similarity were extracted.

[0080] [Configuration Example 8] In a certain aspect, in addition to the configuration example described above, the outputting step includes a step of outputting a utterance example with a high degree of similarity and a utterance example that is considered to have high psychological safety as a utterance in response to the utterance example. For example, the monitor 8 displays the utterance example with a high degree of similarity and the utterance example that is considered to have high psychological safety side by side.

[0081] According to the above embodiment, when a subsequent statement is made in response to a certain statement, if it is determined that the psychological safety of the subsequent statement is low, an ideal example of a statement for the previous statement is presented to the person who made the subsequent statement, and the person can improve their subsequent statement by referring to the example of a statement.

[0082] In another aspect, when a statement by a first speaker (e.g., a user of terminal 10) is input to the dialogue support system 100, the dialogue support system 100 analyzes the statement and extracts example statements that are considered to have high psychological safety from the utterance database 110. The dialogue support system 100 outputs the statement by the first speaker as audio to the second speaker (e.g., a user of terminal 11), who is the other party, and displays the extracted example statements on the monitor 8 of terminal 11. This increases the likelihood that the second speaker will make statements that have high psychological safety toward the first speaker, thereby improving the quality of communication in online dialogue.

[0083] The embodiments disclosed herein should be considered to be illustrative in all respects and not restrictive. The scope of the present invention is defined by the claims, not by the above description, and is intended to include all modifications within the meaning and scope of the claims. [Industrial Applicability]

[0084] The disclosed technology is applicable to online conference systems and other systems in which online interactions take place. [Explanation of symbols]

[0085] 1 CPU, 2 mouse, 3 keyboard, 4 RAM, 5 hard disk, 6 optical disk drive, 7 communication interface, 8 monitor, 9 CD-ROM, 10, 11, 12 terminal, 20 server, 100 dialogue support system, 110 utterance database, 120, 430 analysis unit, 130 judgment unit, 140, 460 output unit, 190 network, 200 computer system, 310, 320, 510, 710, 810 table, 410 input unit, 420 transcription unit, 440 database, 450 screen generation unit, 711, 712, 713, 811, 812, 813, 814 area.

Claims

1. A computer receives a statement from a first speaker to a second speaker in an online dialogue; converting the speech into text by the computer; The computer analyzes the utterance; accessing a database of one or more example utterances based on the results of the analysis; a step in which the computer extracts a desirable response as a response to the utterance by the first speaker from the one or more example utterances based on the utterance by the first speaker; a step of the computer presenting the extracted utterance examples to the second speaker; receiving, by the computer, a response from the second speaker to the utterance by the first speaker; the extracting step includes a step of extracting a desirable response as a response to the utterance by the first speaker based on the response by the second speaker; the outputting step includes outputting the extracted utterance example to the second speaker after receiving an input of a response to the first speaker from the second speaker, A method for supporting online conversations, in which the desired response is registered in advance in a database as a response that increases the other person's psychological safety, and the level of psychological safety is determined based on predetermined criteria.

2. The method for supporting online dialogue according to claim 1 , wherein the step of presenting includes the step of presenting the example utterance before a response is made from the second speaker to the first speaker.

3. The method for supporting online conversations according to claim 1 , wherein the analyzing step includes a step of determining whether the statements input to the computer are psychologically safe.

4. The extracting step includes: A step of searching for past comments similar to the comment of the first commenter; The method for supporting online dialogue according to claim 1 , further comprising a step of selecting a statement that is determined to be psychologically safe as a response to the past statement.

5. the database includes a plurality of example utterances, the selecting step includes a step of searching for an example utterance having a high similarity to a utterance by the first speaker from the plurality of example utterances; 5. The online dialogue support method according to claim 4, wherein the presenting step includes a step of presenting the example utterances with high similarity to the second speaker based on the retrieval of the example utterances with high similarity.

6. the plurality of utterance examples include utterance examples with high psychological safety among well-known utterance examples pre-registered in a database, regardless of the utterances in the online dialogue; 6. The online dialogue support method according to claim 5, wherein the presenting step includes a step of presenting the well-known example utterance to the second speaker based on the fact that the example utterance with a high similarity was not extracted.

7. 5. The method for supporting online conversations according to claim 4, wherein the presenting step includes a step of presenting the example statement with high similarity and an example statement that is considered to have high psychological safety as a response to the example statement with high similarity.

8. A program that causes a processor to execute the support method according to any one of claims 1 to 7.

9. a memory that stores a program that realizes the support method according to any one of claims 1 to 7; and a processor that executes the program.

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