Story Understanding: the Beginning of a Consensus

This report describes research done at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Support for the laboratory's artificial intelligence research is provided in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense under Office of Naval Research contract N00014-75-C-0643.This paper is written for an Area Examination on the three papers: "A Framed PAINTING: The Representation of a Common Sense Knowledge Fragment" by Eugene Charniak, "Reporter: An Intelligent Noticer" by Steve Rosenberg, and "Using Plans to Understand Natural Language" by Robert Wilensky. Surprisingly, these papers share a common view of what it means to understand a story. The first part of this paper reviews the previous notions of "understanding", showing the progression to today's consensus. The content of the consensus and how the individual papers fit within it is then described. Finally, unsolved problems not adequately dealt with by any of the approaches are presented briefly.MIT Artificial Intelligence Laborator

Does modularity undermine the pro‐emotion consensus?

There is a growing consensus that emotions contribute positively to human practical rationality. While arguments that defend this position often appeal to the modularity of emotion-generation mechanisms, these arguments are also susceptible to the criticism, e.g. by Jones (2006), that emotional modularity supports pessimism about the prospects of emotions contributing positively to practical rationality here and now. This paper aims to respond to this criticism by demonstrating how models of emotion processing can accommodate the sorts of cognitive influence required to make the pro-emotion position plausible whilst exhibiting key elements of modularity

The neural representation of mental beliefs held by two agents

Neuroimaging research has demonstrated that mentalizing about false beliefs held by other people recruits the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ). However, earlier work was limited to a single agent that held a false belief. We investigated the effect of two agents that held similar or mixed false and/or true beliefs. Participants saw animated stories with two smurfs holding true or false beliefs (Story phase). At the end of each trial, they were requested to take the perspective of the self or one of the smurfs (Question phase). We predicted that an increasing number of smurfs holding a false belief would increase activation in the TPJ when participants have to report the belief of the smurf, because the incongruent belief should have a stronger influence if it is held by two compared with one agent. This prediction was confirmed as activation in the TPJ during the Story and Question phase increased when more smurfs held a false belief. Taking the perspective of the self led to stronger activation of the TPJ in the two conditions that involved a true belief and weakest activation in the condition of two false beliefs. These data suggest that activation in TPJ depends on the perspective participants take, and that the number of agents holding a false belief influences activation in the TPJ only when taking the agent's perspective

Framing-effects approach: A theoretical and methodological critique

The article deals with research on framing effects. First, I will start with classifying different approaches on framing. Subsequently, I will provide a definition of the concepts of frame, schema and framing, expand on framing research conducted so far - both theoretically and operationally. Having this equipment at hand, I will initiate a discussion on studies of framing-effects in terms of theory, methods and empirical results. This discussion leads to the conclusion that studies on framing effects are insufficiently concerned with the more recent psychological constructs and theories. In merely focusing on the activation of schemata, most studies ignore the more elaborate types of framing-effects. Therefore, several empirical questions remain unanswered and some methodical chances seem to be wasted

Inference processing and error recovery in sentence understanding

Solving the mysteries of human language understanding inevitably requires an answer to the question of how the language understander resolves ambiguity, for human language is certainly ambiguous. But ambiguity leads to choices between possible explanations, and choice opens the door for mistakes. Unless we are willing to believe that the human language understander always makes the correct choice, any explanation of ambiguity resolution must be considered incomplete if it does not also account for recovery from an incorrect decision.This dissertation describes a new approach to lexical ambiguity resolution during sentence understanding which is implemented in a program called ATLAST. Many computational models of natural language understanding have dealt with lexical ambiguity resolution, but ATLAST is one of the few models to address the associated problem of error recovery. ATLAST's ability to recover from an incorrect lexical inference decision stems from its ability to retain unchosen word meanings for a period of time after it selects the apparently context-appropriate meaning of an ambiguous word. The short-term retention of possible lexical inferences permits ATLAST to recover from incorrect decisions without backtracking and reprocessing text, and without keeping a record of possible choices indefinitely.The principle of retention provides a solution to the problem of error recovery which is compatible with current psycholinguistic theories of lexical disambiguation. Furthermore, the existence of some form of retention in lexical disambiguation is supported by the results of experiments with human subjects. This dissertation includes a discussion of these results and speculation on how the principle of retention might be extended to account for recovery from erroneous higher-level inference decisions

[Using Multimedia Technology in Elementary Student Presentations of Literature Research and Reviews]

The purpose of this study was to help third grade students develop multimedia presentations using current technology to improve the related background knowledge and literary awareness of students for six different literature books. A second purpose was to use the authoring system, HyperStudio, to develop an interactive compact disc which future students could access before reading specific literature books to enhance reading comprehension

The Evolution of Interpretive Contexts in Stories

Modeling the effect of context on interpretation, for the purposes of building intelligent systems, has been a long-standing problem: qualities of logic can restrict accurate contextual interpretation, even when there is only one context to consider. Stories offer a range of structures that could extend formal theories of context, indicating how arrays of inferred contexts are able to knit together, making an ontological reference that is specific to the particular set of circumstances embodied in the tale. This derived ontology shifts as the text unfolds, enabling constant revision and the emergence of unexpected meanings. The described approach employs dynamic knowledge representation techniques to model how these structures are built and changed. Two new operators have been designed for this purpose: governance and causal conceptual agents. As an example, a few lines from the story Red Riding Hood As a Dictator Would Tell It are used to demonstrate how a story interpretive framework can be continually re-made, in a way that produces unexpected interpretations of terms

Identifying eBook Pedagogies for Literacy Instruction: A Qualitative Content Analysis

Students in K-6 support becoming digital learners but many lack the digital skills needed to engage with ICTs such as eBooks. Some educators lack the technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK) to adjust instruction and meet students’ needs. This study examined the extant body of research on the use of eBooks with K-6 literacy instruction to address the perceived lack of effective evidence based practices needed to build self-efficacy. The goal: identify effective TPK regarding when, how, and why to integrate eBooks with K-6 literacy instruction. The research questions: According to the extant literature, what types of K-6 literacy practices and engagements with eBooks are identified? What does the body of research recommend as the technological instructional pedagogies and knowledge needed by educators to meet the diverse needs of K-6 students as they engage with eBooks to develop digital literacy skills and competencies? The conceptual frameworks were the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework and the Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) model. TPACK provided the rationale to develop a body of pedagogical knowledge. The TIM model provided the tools to identify when and how eBooks were integrated, the TPK educators need to build self-efficacy towards and value of eBook integration. Qualitative content analysis provided the rigor and structure to narrow the field of research, select relevant text for analysis, and identify why eBook integration is of value. The analysis reported eBooks have been integrated with the components of a balanced approach to literacy instruction and across a range of learning environments and levels of technology integration as defined by the TIM model. Three connected themes emerged: eBooks have a positive effect in building and sustaining reading motivation and engagement. This leads to literacy growth and development. The catalysts for much of these changes was the integrative tools and features embedded within the eBooks