1996 SALS-SIG Seminars

SALS-SIG Research Seminar

Discourse Planning as an Optimization Process

Ingrid Zukerman and Richard McConachy
Department of Computer Science, Monash University

When: Friday, 12th July 1996

Time: 10:30am

Where: Room E6A357, Macquarie University

Abstract:

The traditional goal-based approach to discourse planning suffers from two main shortcomings: (1) relevant information that does not fit in a plan hierarchy is omitted; and (2) a user's inferences from planned discourse are not considered. This talk discusses an optimization-based discourse planning mechanism which overcomes these shortcomings. Our discourse planning mechanism considers the following factors: (1) the effect of a user's inferences from planned utterances on his/her beliefs, (2) the amount of prerequisite information a user requires to understand an utterance, and (3) the amount of information that must be included in referring expressions which identify the concepts mentioned in an utterance. This mechanism is part of a discourse planning system called WISHFUL-II which generates explanations about concepts in technical domains.

Enquiries: Maria Milosavljevic 9850 6345 mariam@mpce.mq.edu.au