Communicative rhythm in gesture and speech

Led by the fundamental role that rhythms apparently play in speech and gestural communication among humans, this study was undertaken to substantiate a biologically motivated model for synchronizing speech and gesture input in human computer interaction. Our approach presents a novel method which conceptualizes a multimodal user interface on the basis of timed agent systems. We use multiple agents for the purpose of polling presemantic information from different sensory channels (speech and hand gestures) and integrating them to multimodal data structures that can be processed by an application system which is again based on agent systems. This article motivates and presents technical work which exploits rhythmic patterns in the development; of biologically and cognitively motivated mediator systems between humans and machines.