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User-system dialogues and the notion of focus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2001

Renaud Lecœuche ,
Chris Mellish ,
Catherine Barry  and
Dave Robertson
Renaud Lecœuche
Affiliation:
PSI-LIRINSA, I.N.S.A., Place Emile Blondel, 76130 Mont-Saint-Aignan, France Department of Artificial Intelligence, 80 South Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1HN, Scotland
Chris Mellish
Affiliation:
Department of Artificial Intelligence, 80 South Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1HN, Scotland
Catherine Barry
Affiliation:
PSI-LIRINSA, I.N.S.A., Place Emile Blondel, 76130 Mont-Saint-Aignan, France
Dave Robertson
Affiliation:
Department of Artificial Intelligence, 80 South Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1HN, Scotland
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Abstract

In recent years, the capabilities of knowledge-based systems to communicate with their users have evolved from simple interactions to complex dialogues. With this evolution comes a need to understand what makes a good dialogue. In this paper, we are concerned with dialogue coherence. We review the notion of focus, which partly explains this property, and its use for user-system communication. First, we examine the major theories dealing with this notion. We describe what their contribution is and how they differ. Then, we illustrate the benefits of using the notion of focus and especially the improvement in text coherence. We pay particular attention to how the notion can concretely be implemented. Its integration with other techniques and theories is described. We conclude the paper by pointing out remaining issues in the understanding of the notion of focus. The contribution of this paper is to provide a classification of the theories of focus and to show the improvements they offer in elaborate user-system dialogues.

Type
Review Article
Information
The Knowledge Engineering Review , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , February 1999 , pp. 381 - 408
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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