Abstract
Intelligent information systems are expected to interpret the users’ information needs semantically, taking the dialogue context into account. Whereas many research prototypes attempt to address the semantic interpretation of queries, only a few try to reason about other aspects of the user’s individual dialogue behavior. This paper introduces an approach to context-dependent interpretation of ambiguous user dialogue acts in information seeking interactions. We illustrate the dialogue analysis and planning methods in the framework of the logic-based information retrieval system Miracle. Based on a dialogue model which describes potential developments of the interaction and recommended problem-solving steps, the abductive dialogue component (ADC) deals with unexpected user inputs which are ambiguous with respect to the intended course of action. Exploiting the dialogue history, the ADC uses abduction to generate interpretations of these inputs and thus to offer the user situation-dependent options for proceeding in the retrieval dialogue.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Belkin, N. J., Cool, C., Stein, A., and Thiel, U. (1995). Cases, scripts, and information seeking strategies: On the design of interactive information retrieval systems. Expert Systems and Applications 9(3): 379–395.
Belkin, N. J. (1996). Strategies for evaluation of interactive multimedia information retrieval systems. In Ruthven, I., ed., MIRO 95. Proceedings of the Final Workshop on Multimedia Information Retrieval. Berlin and New York: Springer (eWiC, electronic Workshops in Computing series).
Chu-Carroll, J., and Carberry, S. (1995). Generating information-sharing subdialogues in expert-user consultation. In Mellish, C. S., ed., Proceedings of the 14th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI ’95). San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann. 1243–1250.
Flach, P. (1994). Simply Logical: Intelligent Reasoning by Example. Chichester: John Wiley.
Grosz, B. J., and Sidner, C. L. (1986). Attention, intentions and the structure of discourse. Computational Linguistics 12(3): 175–204.
Grote, B., Hagen, E., Stein, A., and Teich, E. (1997). Speech production in human-machine dialogue: A natural language generation perspective. In Maier, E., Mast, M., and LuperFoy, S., eds., Dialogue Processing in Spoken Language Systems. Heidelberg: Springer. To appear.
Hagen, E., and Stein, A. (1996). Automatic generation of a complex dialogue history. In McCalla, G., ed., Advances in Artificial Intelligence. Proceedings of the Eleventh Biennial of the Canadian Society for Computational Studies of Intelligence (AI ’96). Berlin and New York: Springer. 84–96.
Jameson, A., Schäfer, R., Simons, J., and Weis, T. (1995). Adaptive provision of evaluation-oriented information: Tasks and techniques. In Mellish, C. S., ed., Proceedings of the 14th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI ’95). San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann. 1886–1893.
Koenemann, J., and Belkin, N. J. (1996). A case for interaction: A study of interactive information retrieval behavior and effectiveness. In Tauber, M. J., et al., eds., Human Factors in Computing Systems: CHI ’96 Conference Proceedings. New York: ACM Press. 205–212.
LuperFoy, S., Nijholt, A., and van Zanten, G. V., eds. (1996). Dialogue Management in Natural Language Systems. Proceedings of the Eleventh Twente Workshop on Language Technology. Enschede, NL: Universiteit Twente.
Mann, W. C., and Thompson, S. A. (1987). Rhetorical structure theory: A theory of text organization. In Polanyi, L., ed., The Structure of Discourse. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. 85–96.
Maybury, M. T., ed. (1993). Intelligent Multimedia Interfaces. Menlo Park, CA: AAAI Press/MIT Press.
Moore, J. D., and Paris, C. L. (1993). Planning text for advisory dialogues: Capturing intentional and rhetorical information. Computational Linguistics 19(4):651–694.
Reichman, R. (1985). Getting Computers to Talk Like You and Me. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Rich, E. (1989). Stereotypes and user modeling. In Kobsa, A., and Wahlster, W., eds., User Models in Dialogue Systems. Berlin and New York: Springer. 35–51.
Schuster, E., Chin, D., Cohen, R., Kobsa, A., Morik, K., Sparck Jones, K., and Wahlster, W. (1988). Discussion section on the relationship between user models and dialogue models. Computational Linguistics 14(3):79–103.
Sitter, S., and Stein, A. (1996). Modeling information-seeking dialogues: The conversational roles (COR) model. RIS: Review of Information Science (online journal) 1(1). Available from http://www.inf-wiss.uni-konstanz.de/RIS/... Extended and revised version of: Modeling the Illocutionary Aspects of Information-Seeking Dialogues. Information Processing & Management 1992, 28(2): 165–180.
Stein, A., Gulla, J. A., Müller, A., and Thiel, U. (1997). Conversational interaction for semantic access to multimedia information. In Maybury, M. T., ed., Intelligent Multimedia Information Retrieval. Menlo Park, CA: AAAI/The MIT Press. 399–421.
Taylor, J. A., Carletta, J., and Mellish, C. (1996). Requirements for belief models in cooperative dialogue. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction 6(l):23–68.
Thiel, U., Gulla, J. A., Müller, A., and Stein, A. (1996). Dialogue strategies for multimedia retrieval: Intertwining abductive reasoning and dialogue planning. In Ruthven, I., ed., MIRO 95. Proceedings of the Final Workshop on Multimedia Information Retrieval. Berlin and New York: Springer (eWiC, electronic Workshops in Computing series).
Winograd, T., and Flores, F. (1986). Understanding Computers and Cognition. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Zukerman, I., and McConachy, R. (1993). Consulting a user model to address a user’s inferences during content planning. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction 3(2): 155–185.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Springer-Verlag Wien
About this paper
Cite this paper
Stein, A., Gulla, J.A., Thiel, U. (1997). Making Sense of Users’ Mouse Clicks: Abductive Reasoning and Conversational Dialogue Modeling. In: Jameson, A., Paris, C., Tasso, C. (eds) User Modeling. International Centre for Mechanical Sciences, vol 383. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-2670-7_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-2670-7_12
Publisher Name: Springer, Vienna
Print ISBN: 978-3-211-82906-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-7091-2670-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive