Elements of a Computational Model of Cooperative Response Generation

Abstract

If natural language question-answering (NLQA) systems are to be truly effective and useful, they must respond to queries cooperatively, recognizing and accommodating in their replies a questioner's goals, plans, and needs. This paper concerns the design of cooperative response generation (CRG) systems, NLQA systems that are able to produce integrated cooperative responses. We propose two characteristics of a computational model of cooperative response generation. First, we argue that CRG systems should be able to explicitly reason about and choose among the different response options available to them in a given situation. Second, we suggest that some choices of response content motivate others--that through a process called reflection, respondents detect the need to explain, justify, clarify or otherwise augment information they have already decided to convey.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 09, 1989
Accession Number
ADA460528

Entities

People

  • Bonnie L. Webber
  • Brant A. Cheikes

Organizations

  • University of Pennsylvania

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Computers
  • Demographic Cohorts
  • Electronic Mail
  • Information Operations
  • Information Science
  • Language
  • Models
  • Natural Languages
  • Networks
  • Operating Systems
  • Ratings
  • Reasoning
  • Reflection
  • Universities

Readers

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Systems Analysis and Design