WHAT TYPE OF INTERACTION IS IT TO BE 
Emanuel A. Schegloff 
Department of Sociology, U.C.L.A. 
For one, like myself, who knows something about human 
interaction, but next to nothing about computers and 
human/machine interaction, the most useful role at a 
meeting such as this is to listen, to hear the troubles 
of those who work actively in the area, and to respond 
when some problem comes up for whose solution the prac- 
tices of human interactants seems relevant. Here, 
therefore, I will merely mention some areas in which 
such exchanges may be useful. 
There appear to be two sorts of status for machine/tech- 
nology under consideration here. In one, the interac- 
tants themselves are humans, but the interaction between 
them is carried by some technology. We have had the tel- 
ephone for about lO0 years now, and letter writing much 
longer, so there is a history here; to it are to be add- 
ed video technology, as in some of the work reported by 
John Carey, or computers, as in the "computer conferenc- 
ing" work reported by Hiltz and her colleagues, among 
others. In the other sort of concern, one or more of 
the participants in an interaction is to be a computer. 
Here the issues seem to be: should this participant be 
designed to approximate a human interactant? What is 
required to do this? Is what is required possible? 
l) If we take as a tentative starting point that person- 
person interaction should tell us what machine-person in- 
teraction should be like (as Jerry Hobbs suggests in a 
useful orienting set of questions he circulated to us), 
we still need to determine what type of person-person in- 
teraction we should consult. It is common to suppose 
that ordinary conversation is, or should be, the model. 
But that is but one of a number of "speech-exchange sys- 
tems" persons use to organize interaction, or to be or- 
ganized by in it."t~eetings," "debates, .... interviews," 
and "ceremonies" are vernacular names for other techni- 
cally specifiable, speech-exchange systems orgainzing 
person-person interaction. Different types of turn-tak- 
ing organization are involved in each, and differences 
in turn-taking organization can have extensive ramifica- 
tions for the conduct of the interaction, and the sorts 
of capacities required of the interactants. In the de- 
sign Qf computer interactants, and in the introduction 
of technological intermediaries in human-human interac- 
tion, the issue remains which type of person-person in- 
teraction is aimed for or achieved. For example, in the 
Pennsylvania video link-up of senior citizen homes, John 
Carey asks whether the results look more like conversa- 
tion or like commercial television. But many of details 
he reports suggests that the form of technological inter- 
vention has made what resulted most like a "meeting" 
speech exchange system. 
2) The term "interactive" in "interactive program" or 
in "person/machine interaction" seems to refer to no 
more than that provision is made for participation by 
more than one participant. "Interactive" in this sense 
is not necessarily "interactional," i.e., the determi- 
nation of at least some aspects of each party's partic- 
ipation by collaboration of the parties. For the "talk" 
part of person-person interaction, a/the major vehicle 
for this "interactionality" is the sequential organiza- 
tion of the talk; that is, the construction of units of 
participation with specific respect to the details of 
what has preceded, and thereby the sequential position 
in which a current bit of talk is being done. Included 
among the relevant aspects of "what has preceded" and 
"current sequential position" is "temporality," or "real 
time," though not necessarily measured by conventional 
chronometry. What are, by commonsense standards, quite 
tiny bits of silence -- two tenths of a second, or less 
(what we call micro-pauses) -- can, and regularly do, 
have substantial sequential and interactional conse- 
quences. The character of the talk after them is regu- 
larly different, or is subject to different analysis, in- 
terpretation or inference. 
Although the telephone deprives interactants of visual 
access to each other, it leaves this "real time" tempo- 
rality largely unaffected, and with it the integrity of 
sequential organization. Nearly all the technological 
interventions I have heard about -- whether replacing an 
interactant, or inserted as a medium between interactants 
-- impacts on this aspect of the exchange of talk. It is 
one reason for wondering whether retention of ordinary 
conversation as the target of this enterprise is appro- 
priate. For some of the contemplated innovations, like 
computer conferencing, exchanges of letters may be a 
more appropriate past model to study, for there too more 
than one may "speak" at a time, long lapses may intervene 
between messages, sequential ordering may be puzzling 
(as in "Did the letters cross in the mail?") etc. 
3) Sequential organization has a direct bearing on an 
issue which must be of continuing concern to workers in 
this area -- that of understanding and misunderstanding. 
It is the sequential (including temporal) organization 
of the talk which, in ordinary conversation, provides 
running evidence to participants that, and how, they have 
been understood. The devices by which troubles of under- 
standing are addressed (what we call "repair," discussed 
for computers by Phil Hayes in a recent paper) -- re- 
quests for repetition or clarification and the like -- 
are only one part of the machinery which is at work. 
Regularly, in ordinary conversation, a speaker can detect 
from the produced-to-be-responsive next turn of another 
s/he has or has been, misunderstood, and can immediately 
intervene to set matters right. This is a major safe- 
guard of "intersubjectivity," a retention of a sense that 
the "sa~ thing" is being understood as what is being 
spoken of. The requirements on interactants to make this 
work are substantial, but in ordinary conversation, much 
of the work is carried as a by-product of ordinary se- 
quential organization. The anecodotes I have heard about 
misunderstandings going undetected for long stretches 
when computers are the medium, and leading to, or past, 
the verge of nastiness, suggest that these are real prob- 
lems to be faced. 
4) In all the business of person-person interaction 
there operates what we call "recipient-design" -- the de- 
sign of the participation by each party by reference to 
the features (personal and idiosyncratic, or categorial) 
of the recipient or co-participant. The formal machin- 
eries of turn-taking, sequential organization, repair, 
etc. are always conditioned in their realization on par- 
ticular occasions and moments by this consideration. I 
don't know how this enters into plans for computerized 
interactants, and it remains to be seen how it will enter 
into the participation of humans dealing with computers. 
Persons make all sorts of allowances for children, non- 
native speakers, animals, the handicapped, etc. But 
there are other allowances they do not make, indeed that 
don't present themselves as allowances or allowables. 
What is involved here is a determination of where the ro- 
bustness is and where the brittleness, in interacting 
with persons by computers, for in the areas of robustness 
it may be that many of the issues I've mentioned may be 
safely ignored; the people "will understand." 
BI 
Throughout these notes, we are at a very general tevel of 
discourse. The real pay-offs, however, will come from 
discussing specifics. For that, interaction will be need- 
ed, rather than position papers. 
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