www.his.sunderland.ac.uk Abstract. Information processing and responding to sensory input with appropriate actions are among the most important capabilities of the brain and the brain has specific areas that deal with auditory or visual processing. The auditory information is sent first to the cochlea, then to the inferior colliculus area and then later to the auditory cortex where it is further processed so that then eyes, head or both can be turned towards an object or location in response. The visual information is processed in the retina, various subsequent nuclei and then the visual cortex before again actions will be performed. However, how is this information integrated and what is the effect of auditory and visual stimuli arriving at the same time or at different times? Which information is processed when and what are the responses for multimodal stimuli? Multimodal integration is first performed in the Superior Colliculus, located in a subcortical part of the midbrain. In this chapter we will focus on this first level of multimodal integration, outline various approaches of modelling the superior colliculus, and suggest a model of multimodal integration of visual and auditory information. 1

Abstract. Goal-orientated Conversational Agents are a specific family of conversational agents that are designed to converse with humans through the use of natural language dialogue to achieve a specific task. Traditionally, they utilise pattern matching algorithms to capture the values of specific attributes through their values through dialogue interaction with a user. This is achieved through the use of scripts which contain sets of rules about the domain and a knowledge base to guide the conversation towards achieving a specific goal. Such systems are ideal for providing clear and consistent advice 24 hours a day in many different scenarios, including advising employees about their organisations policies and procedures, guiding a user through buying a suitable product, and tutoring a student to understand a learning objective. This paper presents an overview of a methodology for constructing goal orientated conversational agents. Three case studies which employ this methodology are introduced and evaluated. Keywords: Goal-orientated conversational agents, pattern matching 1