What specific level did EACL 2006 research focus RL on for learning optimal dialogue strategies?

Answer

Dialogue act level.

Research presented at EACL in 2006 integrated Reinforcement Learning techniques into conversational systems by framing the problem at the dialogue act level. In this approach, the system was treated like a state machine. The agent learned which specific dialogue act—such as asking for information, asserting a fact, or confirming a detail—should be used next, given the current belief state about the user's intent. This approach represented a direct application of the underlying Markov Decision Process (MDP) model of RL to managing conversational flow, although it was noted that this symbolic approach struggled to handle the complexity and generative nature of open-ended conversation effectively, which necessitated later advancements.

What specific level did EACL 2006 research focus RL on for learning optimal dialogue strategies?
Artificial Intelligencemachine learningreinforcement learningdialogue