Modelling communication in negotiation settings

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Modelling communication in negotiation settings
45th IMTA, Pensacola, 4-6 Nov 2003

• Prof Dr MSc Jacques Mylle
• Royal Military Academy
• Belgium

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OUTLINE

• Scope
• Aim
• Linguistic aspects
• Modules for implementation
• Example
• How the modules work
• Conclusion

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SCOPE

• Negotiation is common
• Parties shared mental model ?
• Communication difficulties in PSO

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AIM

• Desired endstate
• An interactive training tool to
• - Enhance communication abilities
• - Train people in negotiation
• in a structured way
• with (instant) automated feedback

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AIM

• Intermediate goals
• unravel represent
• logic informational structure
• of a dialogue
• in a particular setting
• by means of mathemathical tools
• and computer technology

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INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH

• Psychology
• Linguistics
• Mathematics
• Computer sciences

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LINGUISTIC ASPECTS

• Three facets in communication
• Syntactic grammar
• Semantic meaning
• (independent of context)
• Pragmatic state of the world
• (implicit knowledge)
• eliminate/reduce ambiguity

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MODULES

• Specific formal language for each facet
• Syntactic
• Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG)
• Semantic
• Minimal Recursion Semantics (MRS)
• Pragmatic
• Segmented Discourse Representation Theory
  (SDRT)

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• HPSG MRS LKB
• Linguistic Knowlegde
  Builder
• SDRT to be implemented

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(No Transcript)
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EXAMPLE

• B01 Officer  Hello Dragan.
• B02 Interpr  Sacha, Sacha ! How are you ?
• (Gives a document to the DCO)
• B03 Officer  I am OK.
• B04 Interpr This is the person who had an
  accident with a Belgian
• bus six months ago.
• B05 Officer  Yes ?
• B06 Interpr But he did not get his money yet.
• B07 Officer Mm. Mm. (Reads the document)
  Vu-ko-ma
• B08 Interpr Vukomanovic.
• B09 Officer I dont have a file on this person.
• B10 Interpr Hun? He told me that they told him
  to wait four months. Within this four month he
  would be refunded. But he is waiting since more
  than six months and a halve.
• .. (ctd)

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HPSG - analysis
B09 Officer I dont have a file on this person.
Computational representation
Graphical representation
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MRS - analysis
Mathematical output
Computational output
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SDRT - analysis

• B04 Interpr This is the person who had an
  accident with a Belgian
• bus six months ago.
• B05 Officer  Yes ?
• B06 Interpr But he did not get his money yet.

Building monotonic recursive structures (MRS)
by means of rules axioms
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Analysis of sentence B04
This the person you know hem
general axiom of meaning Who had an
accident there must exist a file
contextual rule
Relationship consequence-by-default (Def-Cons)
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Analysis of sentence B05

• Yes ? ? (real) question
• query for further specification
  

Relationship explanation
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• B06 Interpr But he did not get his money yet.
• But negation of a former statement
• contrast
• Rule if one has to receive money in an accident
  context, then he is in his right

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(No Transcript)
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• Which SDRT solution to choose among all possible
  ones to hook on the next sentence?
• The one which maximises the coherence between the
  already elaborated structure and the solution
  considered

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CONCLUSIONS

• Communication abilities are an operational issue.
  
• PC based tool Training anywhere anytime
• HPSG and MRS does not pose fundamental modelling
  problems
• SDRT requires an effective state of the world
• The state of the world consists of rules and
  axioms which are mostly implicit and which have
  to be made explicit
• They can be derived only from empirical data.