Mental State in the TRAINS-92 Dialogue Manager
David R. Traum · 1993
This paper describes the dialogue manager of the TRAINS-92 system. The general dialogue model is described with emphasis on the mentalistic attitudes represented. 1 Introduction: The TRAINS Conversation System The TRAINS project involves research in a wide range of areas of natural language and knowledge representation, including natural (spoken and written) language understanding, dialogue and discourse modelling, and real-time planguided execution. A centerpiece of this research is the design and implementation of a system which serves as a planning assistant to a human user, communicating with the user in an English conversation, with the duty of sending execution directives to agents in the simulated TRAINS world to achieve the goal of the user. More detailed information on the design and scope of the system can be found in [Allen and Schubert, 1991]. 1.1 The Dialogue Manager The dialogue manager is responsible for maintaining the flow of conversation, and making sure that the ...