*2.1. System Overview*

The dialogue system developed in this research was a scenario-based verbal communication system. The system supposed multi-party conversation among two androids and a person. Two androids normally led the conversation by talking with each other and sometimes engaged the person in the conversation by asking his/her opinion or experience. After receiving an answer from the person, the androids recognized it and responded to it. Androids spoke and moved according to directions written in a prepared script, which included the contents of speech and behavior for each android. Some templates for responding to the person were also written in the script, and the system selected a suitable template as a response.

Figure 1 shows an overview of the system. The system was comprised of four modules: the speech recognition module, the text-to-speech module, the androids' behavior control module, and the scenario manager module. Androids could vocally communicate with people by integrating these modules together. The function of each module was as follows:


**Figure 1.** System diagram.
