ROW: Addressing Misunderstandings in Dialogue

阻碍人们使用自然语言与计算机交互的最大障碍之一是，即使对人来说，完美地理解语言也很困难。 最近，一些理论被提出来解释互动者如何恰当地表现--即使他们在话语的某些部分的意义上存在分歧。 本项目旨在扩展这些想法，以便测试其有效性并将其见解付诸使用。 扩展早期的工作包括四个任务：启发和收集的例子;理论扩展;评估扩展模型的逻辑框架内;和建设的应用程序支持用户研究。规划活动将包括审查有关文献;初步试验数据收集和验证的备选方法;与在这些问题上具有专门知识的研究人员进行讨论;以及建立两个原型应用程序，分别与医生和患者讨论医疗信息。 在完成这些活动后，将制定一个详细的计划，以扩大对误解的事先处理。 如果计算机能够解决误解，它们将能够更好地可靠和鲁棒地理解自然语言，这对于帮助那些最需要它们的非计算机专家来说是至关重要的。

One of the biggest roadblocks preventing people from using natural language to interact with computers is that understanding language perfectly is difficult, even for people. Recently, theories have been proposed explaining how interactors can behave appropriately---even if they differ about the meaning of some part of the discourse. This project aims to extend these ideas so that their effectiveness can be tested and their insights put to use. Extending earlier work comprises four tasks: elicitation and collection of examples; theoretical extensions; evaluation of the extended model within its logical framework; and the construction of applications supporting a user study. The planning activities are to include a review of the relevant literature; preliminary experimentation with candidate methods of data collection and validation; discussions with researchers whose expertise bears on these issues; and the construction of two prototype applications that discuss medical information with doctors and patients, respectively. Upon completion of these activities, a detailed plan for extending prior a pproaches to misunderstanding will be developed. If computers can be enabled to address misunderstanding, they will be better able to understand natural language reliably and robustly, which is essential if they are to help those who need them most, non-computer-experts.