Detecting and tracking ongoing topics in psychotherapeutic conversations

Ilyas Chaoua, Diego Reforgiato Recupero, Sergio Consoli, Aki Härmä, Rim Helaoui

Research output: Contribution to journalConference article in journalAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

One of the key aspects in a psychotherapeutic conversation is the understanding of topics dynamics driving the dialogue. This may provide insights on the therapeutic strategy adopted by the counselor for the specific patient, providing the opportunity of building up artificial intelligence (AI) based methods for recommending the most appropriate therapy for a new patient. In this paper, we propose a method able to detect and track topics in real-life psychotherapeutic conversations based on Partially Labeled Dirichlet Allocation. Topics detection helps in summarizing the semantic themes used during the therapeutic conversations, and in predicting a specific topic for each talk-turn. The conversation is modeled by means of a distribution of ongoing topics propagating through each talk sequence. Tracking of topics aims at exploring the dynamics of the conversation and at offering insights into the underlying conversation logic and strategy. We present an alternative way to look at face-to-face conversations in conjunction with a new approach that combines topic modeling and transitions matrices to elicit valuable knowledge.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)97-108
Number of pages12
JournalCEUR Workshop Proceedings
Volume2142
Publication statusPublished - 2018
Externally publishedYes
Event1st International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence in Health - Stockholm, Sweden
Duration: 13 Jul 201814 Jul 2018
Conference number: 1

Keywords

  • Conversational AI
  • Modeling
  • Partially Labeled Dirichlet Allocation
  • Psychotherapeutic conversations
  • Topics detection
  • Transitions matrices

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