Author: SRI International

  • Coarse Coding For Material and Object Identification

    A new coarse-coding technique is presented for labeling image pixels and regions to match exemplars or multivariate material signatures.

  • Classification-Based Tracking Of Objects and Material

    SRI’s KNIFE image analysis system can be used for tracking objects and material classes from one image to another.

  • Integrated Split/Merge Image Segmentation

    The KNIFE segmentation algorithm splits regions along object boundaries, thus avoiding rectangular quadtree artifacts and establishing a context for good statistical decisions.

  • A Survey Of Architectures For Distributed Artificial Intelligence

    This report surveys literature and research in the field of distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) and provides an overview of computer architectures particularly suited to such research. It concentrates on work to date that has involved the construction of testbeds and development tools for DAI. It tries to draw some lessons from these efforts and suggests…

  • Management Of Miscommunications: Toward A System For Automatic Telephone, Interpretation Of Japanese-English Dialogues

    This report presents exploratory research on miscommunications and their resolution during Japanese–English interpretation, based on interviews with experienced professional interpreters. “Brokering” is identified as a naturally occurring and central dialogue management strategy that supports interpreted communications. A comprehensive, ecologically oriented description of brokering is provided that focuses on its structure, functions, and the communicative factors…

  • A Uniform Architecture For Parsing and Generation

    The use of a single grammar for both parsing and generation is an idea with a certain elegance, the desirability of which several researchers have noted. In this paper, we discuss a more radical possibility: not only can a single grammar be used by different processes engaged in various “directions” of processing, but one and…

  • A Descriptive Model Of Reference Using Defaults

    In this article we try to answer the following question: how do we let our audience know what we are talking about? How, in other words, do a speaker and hearer form an agreement as to which entities are the subject of the conversation?

  • The Literal Goal and Discourse Purpose Of Referring

    The view of communication intentions originates with Grice’s analysis of the concept of meaning.  But much research in computational linguists though obviously influenced by Grice, has nevertheless stressed the role of intention and goal recognition in discourse, quite independently of a theory of meaning.

  • A Practical Nonmonotonic Theory For Reasoning About Speech Acts

    A prerequisite to a theory of the way agents understand speech acts is a theory of how their beliefs and intentions are revised as a consequence of events. This process of attitude revision is an interesting domain for the application of nonmonotonic reasoning because speech acts have a conventional aspect that is readily represented by…

  • Rational Interaction As The Basis For Communication

    This paper derives the basis of a theory of communication from a formal theory of rational interaction. The major result is a demonstration that illocutionary acts need neither be primitive, nor explicitly recognized. As a test case, we derive Searle’s conditions on requesting from principles of rationality coupled with a theory of imperatives. The theory…

  • The Descriptive Approach To Reference: Why It Is Difficult To Work With, and Why We Have To

    The problem of reference is to determine how thoughts and sentences can be about objects.  In searching for a more precise formulation, we may start by identifying four elements that can be found in every linguistic event in which reference is made to a particular object, and that correspond to the four entities discussed above.

  • Donnellan’s Distinction As An Adequacy Test For A Referring Model

    In this paper, I provide an analysis of the cognitive structures that underlie referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions.  This endeavor should be worthwhile in an of itself, but it is also intended here ad a means toward another end.  As we shall see, this analysis of Donnellan’s distinction represents and initial step toward…