2,987 research outputs found
Probabilistic Argumentation with Epistemic Extensions and Incomplete Information
Abstract argumentation offers an appealing way of representing and evaluating
arguments and counterarguments. This approach can be enhanced by a probability
assignment to each argument. There are various interpretations that can be
ascribed to this assignment. In this paper, we regard the assignment as
denoting the belief that an agent has that an argument is justifiable, i.e.,
that both the premises of the argument and the derivation of the claim of the
argument from its premises are valid. This leads to the notion of an epistemic
extension which is the subset of the arguments in the graph that are believed
to some degree (which we defined as the arguments that have a probability
assignment greater than 0.5). We consider various constraints on the
probability assignment. Some constraints correspond to standard notions of
extensions, such as grounded or stable extensions, and some constraints give us
new kinds of extensions
Empirical Evaluation of Abstract Argumentation: Supporting the Need for Bipolar and Probabilistic Approaches
In dialogical argumentation it is often assumed that the involved parties
always correctly identify the intended statements posited by each other,
realize all of the associated relations, conform to the three acceptability
states (accepted, rejected, undecided), adjust their views when new and correct
information comes in, and that a framework handling only attack relations is
sufficient to represent their opinions. Although it is natural to make these
assumptions as a starting point for further research, removing them or even
acknowledging that such removal should happen is more challenging for some of
these concepts than for others. Probabilistic argumentation is one of the
approaches that can be harnessed for more accurate user modelling. The
epistemic approach allows us to represent how much a given argument is believed
by a given person, offering us the possibility to express more than just three
agreement states. It is equipped with a wide range of postulates, including
those that do not make any restrictions concerning how initial arguments should
be viewed, thus potentially being more adequate for handling beliefs of the
people that have not fully disclosed their opinions in comparison to Dung's
semantics. The constellation approach can be used to represent the views of
different people concerning the structure of the framework we are dealing with,
including cases in which not all relations are acknowledged or when they are
seen differently than intended. Finally, bipolar argumentation frameworks can
be used to express both positive and negative relations between arguments. In
this paper we describe the results of an experiment in which participants
judged dialogues in terms of agreement and structure. We compare our findings
with the aforementioned assumptions as well as with the constellation and
epistemic approaches to probabilistic argumentation and bipolar argumentation
Understanding Enthymemes in Deductive Argumentation using Semantic Distance Measures
An argument can be regarded as some premises and a claim
following from those premises. Normally, arguments exchanged by human agents are enthymemes, which generally means that some premises are implicit. So when an enthymeme is presented, the presenter expects that the recipient can identify the missing premises. An important kind of implicitness arises when a presenter assumes that two symbols denote the same, or nearly the same, concept (e.g. dad and father), and uses the symbols interchangeably. To model this process, we propose the use of semantic distance measures (e.g. based on a vector representation of word embeddings or a semantic network representation of words) to determine whether one symbol can be substituted by another. We present a theoretical framework for using substitutions, together with abduction of default knowledge, for understanding enthymemes based on deductive argumentation, and investigate how this could be used in practice
Syntactic Reasoning with Conditional Probabilities in Deductive Argumentation
Evidence from studies, such as in science or medicine, often corresponds to conditional probability statements. Furthermore, evidence can conflict, in particular when coming from multiple studies. Whilst it is natural to make sense of such evidence using arguments, there is a lack of a systematic formalism for representing and reasoning with conditional probability statements in computational argumentation. We address this shortcoming by providing a formalization of conditional probabilistic argumentation based on probabilistic conditional logic. We provide a semantics and a collection of comprehensible inference rules that give different insights into evidence. We show how arguments constructed from proofs and attacks between them can be analyzed as arguments graphs using dialectical semantics and via the epistemic approach to probabilistic argumentation. Our approach allows for a transparent and systematic way of handling uncertainty that often arises in evidence
Impact of Argument Type and Concerns in Argumentation with a Chatbot
Conversational agents, also known as chatbots, are versatile tools that have
the potential of being used in dialogical argumentation. They could possibly be
deployed in tasks such as persuasion for behaviour change (e.g. persuading
people to eat more fruit, to take regular exercise, etc.) However, to achieve
this, there is a need to develop methods for acquiring appropriate arguments
and counterargument that reflect both sides of the discussion. For instance, to
persuade someone to do regular exercise, the chatbot needs to know
counterarguments that the user might have for not doing exercise. To address
this need, we present methods for acquiring arguments and counterarguments, and
importantly, meta-level information that can be useful for deciding when
arguments can be used during an argumentation dialogue. We evaluate these
methods in studies with participants and show how harnessing these methods in a
chatbot can make it more persuasive
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