User Modeling

User Modeling is a major focus of our group's research. Ideally, a natural language system's responses should contain exactly the information that will be most helpful to the user. But since not all users are alike, achieving such behavior requires that the system have a model of the particular user with whom it is currently interacting This model should include information about the user's knowledge, beliefs, goals and plans for achieving these goals, abilities, attitudes, and preferences. We have developed strategies for constructing a model of the user's domain goals and plans from an ongoing dialogue. We have also formulated techniques for reasoning with this acquired knowledge to interpret subsequent utterances and to generate definitions tailored to the user's needs in task-oriented dialogues. We are now expanding our user modeling research to construct a richer model of the user, including the user's problem-solving and communicative intentions and the user's beliefs and preferences. We will then develop computational strategies for using this enhanced model for understanding meta-level discourse and for generating cooperative helpful responses.

Research Monograph

Plan Recognition in Natural Language Dialogue. ACL-MIT Press Seties on Natural Language Processing. MIT Press, 1990.

Relevant Publications (since 1990)

Publications:

  Sandra Carberry and Stephanie Elzer.  Exploiting Evidence Analysis in Plan Recognition.  Proceedings of  International Conference on User Modeling (UM-07), 2007. (to appear) pdf version

Stephanie Elzer, Nancy Green, Sandra Carberry, and James Hoffman.  A Model of Perceptual Task Effort for Bar Charts and its Role in Recognizing Intention.   International Journal on User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, 16(1), pp. 1-30, 2006. (Received James Chen 2006 Award for Best Paper.)     pdf version

  Stephanie Elzer, Sandra Carberry, and Seniz Demir.  Communicative Signals as the Key to Automated Understanding of Simple Bar Charts.   (received Best Pasper Award) International Conference on the Theory and Application of Diagrams, 2006.   

p>  Stephanie Elzer, Sandra Carberry, Ingrid Zukerman, Daniel Chester, Nancy Green, and Seniz Demir.  A Probabilistic Framework for Recognizing Intention in Information Graphics.   Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-05), 2005.    pdf version

  Stephanie Elzer, Sandra Carberry, Daniel Chester, Seniz Demir, Nancy Green, and Ingrid Zukerman.  Exploring and Exploiting the Limitied Utility of Captions in Recognizing Intention in Information Graphics.   Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL-05), pp. 223-230, 2005.    pdf version

  Terrence Harvey, Sandra Carberry, and Keith Decker.  Tailored Responses for Decision Support.   Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on User Modeling (UM-05), 2005.    pdf version

  Terrence Harvey, Keith Decker, and Sandra Carberry.  Multi-Agent Decision Support Via User Modeling.   Proceedings of the Fourth International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 2005.    pdf version

  Stephanie Elzer, Nancy Green, Sandra Carberry, and James Hoffman.  Incorporating Perceptual Task Effort into the Recognition of Intention in Information Graphics.   Proceedings of the Third International Conference on the Theory and Application of Diagrams, pp. 255-270, 2004.    pdf version

Stephanie Elzer, Nancy Green, Sandra Carberry, and Kathleen McCoy.  Extending Plan Inference Techniques to Recognize Intentions in Information Graphics.  Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on User Modeling,  pp. 122-132, 2003.    pdf version

 Sandra Carberry, Lynn Lambert, and Leah Schroeder.  Toward Recognizing and Conveying an Attitude of Doubt Via Natural Language.  Applied Artificial Intelligence,  16(7), pp. 495-517, 2002.    postscript version

Sandra Carberry. Techniques for Plan Recognition. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, 11(1-2), pp. 31-48, 2001. postscript version

Chu-Carroll, Jennifer and Sandra Carberry. Conflict Resolution in Collaborative Planning Dialogues. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 53(6) pp.~969-1015, 2000.

Schroeder, Leah and Sandra Carberry. Realizing Expressions of Doubt in Collaborative Dialogue. Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Computational Linguistics, pp. 740-746, 2000.

Carberry, Sandra, Jennifer Chu-Carroll, Stephanie Elzer. Constructing and Utilizing a Model of User Preferences in Collaborative Consultation Dialogues. Computational Intelligence Journal, 15(3), pp. 185-217, 1999. zipped postscript version

Green, Nancy and Sandra Carberry. A Computational Mechanism for Initiative in Answer Generation. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, 9(1-2), pp. 93-132, 1999.

Carberry, Sandra and Lynn Lambert. A Process Model for Recognizing Communicative Acts and Modeling Negotiation Subdialogues. Computational Linguistics, 25(1), pp. 1-53, 1999.  postscript version

Elzer, Stephanie and Jennifer Chu-Carroll and Sandra Carberry. Recognizing and Utilizing User Preferences in Collaborative Consultation Dialogues. Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on User Modeling, pp.~19-24, 1994.

Carberry, Sandra and Jennifer Chu. User Models and Dialog Systems. Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, Allen Kent, Editor, pp.~348-366, Marcel Dekker Publishers, 1994. Also appeared in Encyclopedia of Microcomputers, Allen Kent and James G. Williams, Editors, Marcel Dekker Publishers, 1993.

Carberry, Sandra and Alan Pope. Plan Recognition Strategies for Language Understanding. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies. vol. 39, pp. 529-577, 1993

Sarner, Margaret and Sandra Carberry. Generating Tailored Definitions Using a Multifaceted User Model. International Journal on User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, pp. 181-210, 1992.

Eller, Rhonda and Sandra Carberry. A Meta-Rule Approach to Flexible Plan Recognition in Dialogue. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, pp. 27-53, 1992.

Lambett, Lynn and Sandra Carberry. A Tripartite Plan-Based Model of Dialogue. Proceedings of the 29th Annual Meeting of the ACL, pp. 47-54, 1991.

Carberry, Sandra. Incorporating Default Inferences into Plan Recognition. Proceedings of the Eighth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, AAAI-90, pp. 471-478, 1990.


Updated on August 27, 1998.
Sandra Carberry, carberry@cis.udel.edu

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