Computational mathetics tool kit: Architectures for modelling dialogues

Abstract

The paper presents the results of an attempt to find fundamental computational concepts for the description of abstract agent - to - agent dialogues, with applications to specific teacher-student dialogues. Using as a description language Scheme, we outline a software architecture for dialogue modelling that is based on three notions: a. the notion of stream, modelling infinite sets and delayed evaluation, such as a stream of utterances or “dialogue acts” by a single agent in a dialogue; b. the notion of object as a function generated by evaluating another function, such as a model of an agent able to react to messages with a partner agent, and c. the notion of environment, modelling bindings between names and values, i.e. a context, to be interpreted as a model of an agent’s private knowledge or belief about a partner’s knowledge.