Mock exam Voice and Body Language
Questions
Question 1: Stance and irony
People always have a stance towards their own utterances.
a. Define what it means to have a stance towards an utterance.
b. Give an example of a type of stance.
Irony means that the intended meaning/actual outcome is the opposite of what is expected. Irony can refer to a
stance and to a property of a message.
c. Explain how using the following example: “I wonder how comfortable the replacement bus service will be.”
Question 2: Pitch
Look at the pitch track below, state what kind of context (how many shapes, how many colors) would fit (2pt) and
explain why (8pt).
Question 3: Prominence
Are there reasons to assume that facial cues to prominence differ:
a. Between the upper and lower part of the face?
b. Between the left and the right side of the face?
Motivate your answers based on what has been discussed during the course.
Question 4: Prosody
Imagine a speaker who instructs someone else to move an object on a chess board by using phrases like:
- Move the object from A2 to A3.
- Move the object from A2 to B2.
Answer the following questions:
a. What would be the prosodic difference between these two phrases if they would be uttered by a native
speaker of English?
b. What do you expect to happen prosodically when the two phrases would be uttered by a native speaker of
French in his/her language?
Question 5: Introduction
The same sentence, eg. “My girlfriend is pregnant” can have different extra connotations.
a. Explain how.
b. Explain multimodality. Give an example of multimodality.
c. Explain how voice and body language develop with age.
Question 6: Accents and prominence
Information structure manifests itself in two ways.
a. Name the 2 ways.
Question 7: Chunking
a. Give an example for boundary marking in (1) written language, (2) in spoken language and (3) as visual cues.
b. Explain turn-taking.
1
, Question 8: Synthesis
In lecture 6, Vall-E is mentioned as an example of synthesis. Explain synthesis and its training goal.
Question 9: Confidence marking
a. Give the definition for metacognition. In addition, explain theory of mind as a developmental aspect of
metacognition.
b. Explain the following graph:
c. It is also found that observers can estimate a speaker’s level of uncertainty on the basis of audiovisual cues.
Explain the following graph:
Question 10: Error handling and feedback
In spoken language, many things can go wrong. Confidence level is one example of the use of audiovisual prosody.
Another is feedback to a speaker about the interaction.
a. Explain the two phases of the grounding of information.
b. How are feedback cues used to not get into an infinite loop of grounding of information?
c. Explain the following graph:
d. What is error handling when it comes to spoken dialogue systems (SDS)?
Question 11: Emotion
It is commonly believed that audiovisual prosody may reveal a speaker’s emotions, both negative and positive.
Children express their emotions more openly than adults.
a. Explain the presence effect.
b. Relate the presence effect to the iCat study.
c. What is the effect of eye gaze of a feeling of co-presence in children? Explain the graph.
2
Questions
Question 1: Stance and irony
People always have a stance towards their own utterances.
a. Define what it means to have a stance towards an utterance.
b. Give an example of a type of stance.
Irony means that the intended meaning/actual outcome is the opposite of what is expected. Irony can refer to a
stance and to a property of a message.
c. Explain how using the following example: “I wonder how comfortable the replacement bus service will be.”
Question 2: Pitch
Look at the pitch track below, state what kind of context (how many shapes, how many colors) would fit (2pt) and
explain why (8pt).
Question 3: Prominence
Are there reasons to assume that facial cues to prominence differ:
a. Between the upper and lower part of the face?
b. Between the left and the right side of the face?
Motivate your answers based on what has been discussed during the course.
Question 4: Prosody
Imagine a speaker who instructs someone else to move an object on a chess board by using phrases like:
- Move the object from A2 to A3.
- Move the object from A2 to B2.
Answer the following questions:
a. What would be the prosodic difference between these two phrases if they would be uttered by a native
speaker of English?
b. What do you expect to happen prosodically when the two phrases would be uttered by a native speaker of
French in his/her language?
Question 5: Introduction
The same sentence, eg. “My girlfriend is pregnant” can have different extra connotations.
a. Explain how.
b. Explain multimodality. Give an example of multimodality.
c. Explain how voice and body language develop with age.
Question 6: Accents and prominence
Information structure manifests itself in two ways.
a. Name the 2 ways.
Question 7: Chunking
a. Give an example for boundary marking in (1) written language, (2) in spoken language and (3) as visual cues.
b. Explain turn-taking.
1
, Question 8: Synthesis
In lecture 6, Vall-E is mentioned as an example of synthesis. Explain synthesis and its training goal.
Question 9: Confidence marking
a. Give the definition for metacognition. In addition, explain theory of mind as a developmental aspect of
metacognition.
b. Explain the following graph:
c. It is also found that observers can estimate a speaker’s level of uncertainty on the basis of audiovisual cues.
Explain the following graph:
Question 10: Error handling and feedback
In spoken language, many things can go wrong. Confidence level is one example of the use of audiovisual prosody.
Another is feedback to a speaker about the interaction.
a. Explain the two phases of the grounding of information.
b. How are feedback cues used to not get into an infinite loop of grounding of information?
c. Explain the following graph:
d. What is error handling when it comes to spoken dialogue systems (SDS)?
Question 11: Emotion
It is commonly believed that audiovisual prosody may reveal a speaker’s emotions, both negative and positive.
Children express their emotions more openly than adults.
a. Explain the presence effect.
b. Relate the presence effect to the iCat study.
c. What is the effect of eye gaze of a feeling of co-presence in children? Explain the graph.
2
