The Role of Body Moves in Dialogue

Abstract

The importance of non-verbal communication within the human interface, the point at which interaction occurs, is becoming of increasing significance for natural language pragmatics and the design of interactive systems based upon it. This dimension of communication is essential for an understanding of 'co-presence' (Good, 1996), which is an essential component of human understanding. Co-presence denotes simply how we are present to each other, be this in the same physical space or in differing physical spaces. Being present may be described as a precondition for communication, and the nature of this precondition has a bearing upon how we coordinate with each other.