System Name
ViewGen
B2Z list of NLG systems
System Builders Wilks,By, Lee, Ballim
Development Dates 2000-ongoing
Languages English
URL (if available) http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/nlp/viewgen/
who's who


Description:

ViewGen (Viewpoint Generation) is an approach to dialogue understanding and belief modelling implemented in a suite of programs. It includes natural language generation for hypertext and builds on a particular philosophical position concerning discourse and belief.

Extract from website: NLG systems often represent user-related information into a separate knowledge source, i.e., a user model. Typically, a user model will track some of user's beliefs, goals, interests, differences between a user's and system's beliefs, and nested beliefs (i.e., an agent's beliefs about other agent's beliefs). In our view, what is needed is an independent, powerful agent modelling component which can be used to support both understanding and generation. The advantage of using such a component is that potentially it could be reused between application domains and also between generators. Therefore we are now attempting to integrate ViewGen into a hypertext generation system. From that perspective, an important advantage of ViewGen is its account for common knowledge (i.e., default ascription) and stereotypes, as this will allow the modelling of different classes of users and tasks and the use of the most relevant one(s). In addition, the topic environments will restrict the search for relevant information to be included in the generated text.

References

Main reference

Y. Wilks and By T.
Protocols for Reference Sharing in a Belief Ascription Model of Communication.
Cognitive Science, in press.


Information last updated: 07.09.2003 (dd.mm.yy)
Page last generated: 25-1-2009 21:01:39