Section III: conversational structure measures

In this section, three aspects of conversational structure were examined: (1) number of statements, (2) questions, and (3) responses to questions. These measures were selected to examine if any patterns exist in how different calls might be responded to by different callers. Do callers respond differently in PER calls and how do their styles of speaking in a conversation relate to different call categories?

Research literature on emergency calls [62], Emergency Call Centre protocol [94], and on-site observations of call takers indicate a majority of the queries in the call conversation are by call takers and a majority of the responses to questions in the call conversation are by PERS users. Analyzing the statements, queries, and responses to questions may help identify differences in conversational structure between callers and call takers as well as verify what is expected to occur via the PER provider’s call handling protocol. In SALT, ‘responses to questions’ are defined as any “utterance that immediately follows a question from a different speaker” in the conversation. Statements are utterances that end with a period. Questions are utterances that end with a question mark [77].