Abstract
One of the most important problems in human-computer interaction is that of maximising communication between the user and the computer. We claim that optimum communication will be facilitated when the computer can analyse and respond to the intentions of the computer user. We propose a philosophy for computer interface design in which the computer analyses the intentions of users through verbal and nonverbal media. With respect to verbal media we describe a computer program called Operating System CONsultant (OSCON) which can analyse users' intentions from English in the domain of computer operating systems. With respect to nonverbal media we argue that computers will be better able to analyse people's intentions when recognising the media of facial expression, touch, and sound. Some results and implications from a recent experiment on cross-cultural emotions in faces are discussed. We describe the IDIOMS (Intelligent Decision-making In On-line Management Systems) project which implements a design philosophy for capturing users' concepts and intentions. We argue that this approach will ensure the computers will become more understanding of their users and this will result in a more sensitive human-computer interface.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allen, James F. (1983). Recognising Intentions from Natural Language Utterances. In Brady, M. & Berwick, R. C. (eds.) Computational Models of Discourse, 107–166. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
Alshawi, Hiyan (1987). Memory and Context for Language Interpretation. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Appelt, Douglas E. (1981). Planning Natural-language Utterances to Satisfy Multiple Goals. Technical Note 259, SRI International, 333 Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park, California 94025, U.S.A.
Appelt, Douglas E. (1985). Planning English Sentences. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Austin, J. L. (1962). How To Do Things With Words (Second Edition). Urmson, J. O. & Sbisà, Marina (eds.). Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.
Beardon, Colin (1995). Discourse Structures in Iconic Communication. In Mc Kevitt, Paul (ed.) Artificial Intelligence Review, Special Issue on Integration of Natural Language and Vision Processing 9(2–3): 189–203.
Brown, John Seeley, Burton, Richard R. & Bell, Alan G. (1975). SOPHIE: A Step Towards Creating a Reactive Learning Environment. In International Journal of Man-Machine Studies 7: 675–696.
Brunelli, R. & Poggio, T. (1993). Face Recognition: Features versus Templates. In IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence 15.
Burton, R. (1976). Semantic Grammar: An Engineering Technique for Constructing Natural-language Understanding Systems. BBN Report No. 3453, Bolt, Beranek & Newman, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.
Carberry, Sandra (1989). A pragmatics-based Approach to Ellipsis Resolution. In Computational Linguistics 15(2): 75–96 June.
Chin, David (1988). Exploiting User Expertise in Answer Expression. In Proceedings of The Seventh National American Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-88) 2: 756–760, St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A., August.
Cohen, Phil R., Perrault, C. Raymond & Allen, James F. (1982). Beyond Question Answering. In Lehnert, Wendy G. & Ringle, Martin H. (eds.) Strategies for Natural Language Processing, 245–274. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, New Jersey.
Collen, A., Minati, G. & Ciapessoni, E. (1994). Logical Openness in Systems. In Systems Research 11(2): 65–72.
Computer Weekly (1995). Computer Weekly 13: June, p. 40.
Cytowic, R.E. (1992). The Man Who Tasted Shapes. Abacus: London, England.
Dale, Robert (1988). The Generation of Subsequent Referring Expressions in Structured Discourses. In Zock, M. & Sabah, Gérard (eds.) Advances in Natural Language Generation, An Interdisciplinary Perspective, Communication in Artificial Intelligence Series 58–75. Pinter Publishers: London.
Dale, Robert (1989). Cooking Up Reference Expressions. In Proceedings of the 27th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics 68–75. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, June.
Darwin, Charles (1872). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Chicago University Press: Chicago, Illinois.
Davidson, C. (1993). Visions of the Future. The Guardian, England, Sep. 9.
Delvolvé, N. & Queinnec, Y. (1983). Operators' Activities at Terminals: A Behavioural Approach. In Ergonomics. 26: 329–346.
Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1972) Similarities and Differences between Cultures in Expressive Movements. In Hinde, R. A. (ed.) Nonverbal Communication. CUP: Cambridge.
Ekman, P. (1993). Facial Expression and Emotion. 1992 Award Address. In American Psychologist, April, 384–392.
Fass, Dan (1988). Collative Semantics: A Semantics for Natural-language Processing. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Computer Science, University of Essex. Also, as Memorandum in Computer and cognitive Science, MCCS-88-118, Computing Research Laboratory, Dept. 3CRL, Box 30001, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003-0001, U.S.A.
Fogarty, T. C., Ireson, N. S. & Battle, S. A. (1992). Generating Combinations of Attributes and Categories of Nominal Attribute Values for a Bayesian Classifier for Credit Control. In Proceedings of Institute of Mathematics and Applications (IMA) International Conference on Control: Modelling, Computation, Information. Glasgow Polytechnic, Glasgow.
Fowler, C. J. H. & Murray, D. (1987). Gender and Cognitive Style: Differences at the Human-computer Interface. In Bullinger, H. J. & Shackel, B. (eds.) Human-Computer Interaction-INTERACT '87. Elsevier Science Publications B.V./North-Holland: Amsterdam.
Gammack, J. G., Battle, S. A & Stephens, R. A. (1989). A Knowledge Acquisition and Representation Scheme for Constraint Based and Parallel Systems. In Proceedings of The IEEE Conference on Systems Man and cybernetics, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1030–1035.
Gammack, J. G., Fogarty, T. C., Battle, S. A. & Miles, R. G. (1991). Management Decision Support from Large Databases: The IDIOMS Project. In Proceedings of The Association of Modelling and Simulation Enterprises (AMSE) International Conference on Signals and Systems, Institute of Transport, Warsaw, Poland, 213–219.
Gammack, J. G., Fogarty, T. C., Battle, S. A., Ireson, N. S. & Cui, J. (1992). Human Centred Decision Support: The IDIOMS Project. In AI and Society 6(4): 345–366.
Gill, K.S. (1991). Summary of Human-centred Systems Research in Europe. In Systemist 13(1–2), Feb and May.
Graves, Gaye L. (1993). This Digital Baby Responds to Coos and Goos. Tech. Watch. Computer Graphics World 16, July.
Grosz, Barbara J. (1983). TEAM: A Transportable Natural Language Interface System. In Proceedings of The 1983 Conference on Applied Natural Language Processing, 39–45, Santa Monica, California, U.S.A., February.
Grosz, B., Joshi, A. & Weinstein, S. (1983). Providing a Unified Account of Definite Noun Phrases in Discourse. In Proceedings of The 21st Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, 44–50, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Also in Proceedings of The International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Cambridge, MA.
Grosz, B. J. & Sidner, C. L. (1986). Attention, Intentions and the Structure of Discourse. Computational Linguistics 12(3): 175–204.
Hecking, M., Kemke, C., Nessen, E., Dengler, D., Gutmann, M. & Hector, G. (1988). The SINIX Consultant—A Progress Report. Memo No. 28, Department of Computer Science, University of Saarbrücken, D-6600 Saarbrücken 11, Germany, European Union (EU), August.
Hinkelman, Elizabeth & Allen, James (1989). Two Constraints on Speech Act Ambiguity. In Proceedings of The 27th Annual Meeting of the Association for computational Linguistics, 212–219, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, June.
Hobbs, Jerry (1979). Coherence and Coreference. In Cognitive Science 3(1): 67–90.
Kemke, Christel (1986) The SINIX Consultant-Requirements, Design, and Implementation of An Intelligent Help System for a UNIX Derivative. Report No. 11, SC-Project, Department of Computer Science, University of Saarbrücken, Saarbrücken, Germany, European Union (EU), October.
Kemke, Christel (1987). Representation of Domain Knowledge in an Intelligent Help System. In Bullinger, H. J. & Shackel, B. (eds.) Human-Computer Interaction—INTERACT '87, 215–220. Elsevier Science Publications B.V./North-Holland: Amsterdam.
Kobsa, Alfred & Wahlster, Wolfgang (1988). User Models in Dialog Systems. Springer-Verlag: Berlin.
Libet, B. (1985). Unconscious Cerebral Initiative and the Role of Conscious Will in Voluntary Action. In Behavioural and Brain Sciences 8(4): 529–539.
Litman, Diane & Allen, James (1984). A Plan Recognition Model for Clarification Subdialogues. In Proceedings of The COLING-84, 302–311.
Maes, P. & Nardi, D. (1987). Meta-level Architecture and Reflection. North Holland: Amsterdam.
Maruyama, M. (1986). Toward Picture-coded Information Systems. In Futures, June, 450–452.
Mc Kevitt, Paul (1986). Object and Action Frames for Transfer Semantics. Memorandum in Computer and cognitive Science, MCCS-86–69, Computing Research Laboratory, Dept. 3CRL, Box 30001, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003–0001, U.S.A.
Mc Kevitt, Paul (1988). Artificial Communicators: An Operating System Consultant. Master's Thesis, Computer Science Department, Dept. 3CU, Box 30001, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003-0001, U.S.A, March.
Mc Kevitt, Paul (1991a). Principles and Practice in an Operating System Consultant. In Partridge, Derek (ed.) Artificial Intelligence and Software Engineering 1, Chapter on ‘AI Mechanisms and Techniques in Practical Software’. Ablex Publishing Corporation: New York.
Mc Kevitt, Paul (1991b). Analysing Coherence of Intention in Natural Language Dialogue. Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Computer Science, University of Exeter, GB-EX4 4PT, U.K., EU.
Mc Kevitt, Paul & Wilks, Yorick (1987). Transfer Semantics in an Operating System Consultant: The Formalization of Actions involving Object Transfer. In Proceedings of The Tenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-87) 1: 569–575. Milan, Italy, European community (EC), August.
Mc Kevitt, P., Partridge, D. & Wilks, Y. (1992a). Approaches to Natural Language Discourse Processing. Technical Report 227, Department of Computer Science, University of Exeter, GB-EX4 4PT, England, EU.
Mc Kevitt, P., Partridge, D. & Wilks, Y. (1992b). Analysing Coherence of Intention in Natural Language Dialogue. Technical Report, Department of Computer Science, University of Exeter, GB-EX4 4PT, Exeter, England, EU.
Mc Kevitt, P., Partridge, D. & Wilks, Y. (1992c). Why Machines Should Analyse Intention in Naturallanguage Dialogue. Technical Report 233, Department of Computer Science, University of Exeter, GB-EX4 4PT, Exeter, England, EU.
Mc Kevitt, P., Partridge, D. & Wilks, Y. (1992d). Experimenting with Intention in Natural-language Dialogue. Technical Report 234, Department of Computer Science, University of Exeter, GB-EX4 4PT, Exeter, England, EU.
Normile, D. & Barnes-Svarney, P. (1993). Hold that Thought: Computers Read Minds. In Popular Science, June, p. 51.
Oates, T. & Gammack, J. G. (1992). Generating Knowledge for Expert Systems from Data-bases. In Presentation at the Association of Modelling and Simulation Enterprises (AMSE) International Conference on Modelling, Simulation and Control, Hefei, China, October.
Pentland, Alex (ed.) (1993). Looking at People: Recognition and Interpretation of Human Action. IJCAI-93 Workshop (W28) at The 13th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-93), Chambéry, France, EU, August.
Pereira, Fernando & Warren, David (1980). Definite Clause Grammars for Language Analysis—A Survey of the Formalism and a Comparison with Augmented Transition Networks. Artificial Intelligence 13: 231–278.
Radin, D. I. (1993). Neural Network Analysis of Consciousness Related Patterns in Random Sequences. In Journal of Scientific Exploration 7(4): 355–373.
Sanderson, David W. (1993). Smileys. O Reilly & Associates, Inc., Sebastopol, California.
Sealre, John R. (1969). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge University Press: London.
Schank, Roger C. (1972). Conceptual Dependency: A Theory of Natural Language Understanding. In Cognitive Psychology 3(4): 552–631.
Schank, Roger C. (1973). Identification and Conceptualizations Underlying Natural Language. In Schank, R. & Kolby, K. (eds.) Computer Models of Thought and Language. W. H. Freeman and Co.: San Francisco, CA.
Schank, Roger C. (1975). Conceptual Information Processing. Fundamental Studies in Computer Science 3. North-Holland: Amsterdam.
Schank, Roger C. & Abelson, Robert P. (1977). Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding: An Inquiry into Human Knowledge Structures. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ.
Sheehy, N. P., Chapman, A. J. & Forrest, M. A. (1987). Communication Failure in Dialogue: Non-verbal Behaviour at the User Interface. In Megaw, E. D. (ed.) Contemporary Ergonomics. Proc. Ergonomic Society's 1987 Annual Conference. Taylor and Francis: London.
Sidner, Candace L. (1983). What the Speaker Means: The Recognition of Speakers' Plans in Discourse. In International Journal of Computers and Mathematics, Special Issue in Computational Linguistics 9(1): 71–82.
Sidner, Candice L. (1985). Plan Parsing for Intended Response Recognition in Discourse. Computational Intelligence 1(1): 1–10, February.
Suchman, Lucy (1987). Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-machine Communication. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Tao, Li (1989). How To Read Faces. Hamlyn: London.
von Bertalanffy, L. (1950). The Theory of Open Systems in Physics and Biology. In Science 3, Jan. 13th.
Wang, Z.-M. (1993). Editorial: Strategies for Ergonomics in Developing Countries. Ergonomics 36: 597–599.
Wang, Z.-M. & Gammack, J. G. (1995). Faces and Interfaces: Towards the Computer Mediated Communication of Affect. Technical Report, Department of Computing and Information Systems, University of Paisley, Paisley, Scotland.
Webber, Bonnie (1978). A Formal Approach to Discourse Anaphora. Doctoral Dissertation. Also in, BBN Report No. 3761, Bolt, Beranek & Newman, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.
Wilensky, Robert (1983). Planning and Understanding. Addison-Wesley: Reading, MA.
Wilensky, R., Arens, Y. & Chin, D. (1984). Talking to UNIX in English: An Overview of UC. Communications of the ACM 27(6): 574–593, June.
Wilensky, R., Mayfield, J., Albert, A., Chin, D., Dox, C., Luria, M., Martin, J. & Wu, D. (1986). UC—A Progress Report. Report No. UCB/CSD 87/303, Computer Science Division (EECS), University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, U.S.A., July.
Wilensky, R., Chin, D. N., Luria, M., Martin, J., Mayfield, J. & Wu, D. (1988). The Berkeley UNIX Consultant Project. Computational Linguistics 14(4): 35–84, December.
Wilks, Yorick (1973). An Artificial Intelligence Approach to Machine Translation. In Schank, R. & Kolby, K. (eds.) Computer Models of Thought and Language. Wh Freeman and Co., San Francisco, CA.
Wilks, Yorick (1975a). Preference Semantics. In Edward, Keenan (ed.) Formal Semantics of Natural Language. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, United Kingdom. Also as, Memo AIM-206, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, California, U.S.A., July 1973.
Wilks, Yorick (1975b). An Intelligent Analyzer and Understander of English. Communications of the ACM, 18(5): 264–274, May. Also in Grosz. B., Jones, K. S. & Webber, B. (eds.) Readings in Natural Language Processing, 193–204. Morgan Kaufmann, 1986: Los Altos, California.
Wilks, Yorick (1975c) A Preferential, Pattern-seeking Semantics for Natural Language Inference. Artificial Intelligence 6: 53–74.
Winograd, Terry & Flores, Fernando (1986). Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design. Ablex Publishing Corporation: Norwood, New Jersey.
Yazdani, Masoud & Mealing, Stuart (1995). Communicating Through Pictures. In Mc Kevitt, Paul (ed.) Artificial Intelligence Review, Special Issue on Integration of Natural Language and Vision Processing 9(2–3): 205–213.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
MC Kevitt, P., Gammack, J.G. The sensitive interface. Artif Intell Rev 10, 275–298 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00127683
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00127683