A computational speech-act model of human-computer conversations

The authors describe a computational paradigm for representing and managing human-computer dialog in an expert clinical monitoring system. Declarative scriptlike structures, implemented in Prolog, are used to represent and manage the speech acts of the stereotypical conversations between the computer and its users, in this case clinical staff. This model is useful for rapid prototyping of the human interface and can serve as a basis for implementation of the system in an actual clinical setting. In an example, actions such as database and expert system queries are simulated through keyboard input. The chief strength of the computational model is that it permits a broad range of social and professional concerns to be identified and resolved during the design phase of system development, thereby reducing the potential negative impact of the system