Theoretical, empirical and computational approaches to explanation dialogues

Presents two strands of research; first an empirical study and analysis of natural dialogues between experts, novices and partial experts and second, a study concerned with the acceptability of explanations from a user viewpoint and the style of explanation provision by experts. From the analysis of the natural dialogues between experts, novices and partial experts a theory of explanation dialogues is developed known as extended schema based theory (EST). Comparisons are made between EST and rhetorical structure theory. EST appears to provide more powerful and complete question understanding and explanation generation in a more efficient computational form. EST is then applied to the design and implementation of an explanation generator, called EXPLAIN. From the second study the implications of human-novice/human-expert explanation provision are considered for the style of interaction and explanations provided by EXPLAIN