In expert-consultation dialogues, it is inevitable that an agent will at times have insufficient information to determine whether to accept or reject a proposal by the other agent. This results in the need for the agent to initiate an information-sharing subdialogue to form a set of shared beliefs within which the agents can effectively re-evaluate the proposal. This paper presents a computational strategy for initiating such information-sharing subdialogues to resolve the system's uncertainty regarding the acceptance of a user proposal. Our model determines when information-sharing should be pursued, selects a focus of information-sharing among multiple uncertain beliefs, chooses the most effective information-sharing strategy, and utilizes the newly obtained information to re-evaluate the user proposal. Furthermore, our model is capable of handling embedded information-sharing subdialogues.
A model of plan recognition in discourse must be based on intended recognition, distinguish each agent's beliefs and intentions from the other's, and avoid assumptions about the correctness or completeness of the agents' beliefs. In this paper, we present an algorithm for plan recognition that is based on the Shared-Plan model of collaboration (Grosz and Sidner, 1990; , 1990) and that satisfies these constraints. Abstract : Discourses are fundamentally instances of collaboration behavior. We propose a model of the collaborative plans of agents achieving joint goals and illustrate the role of these plans in discourses. Three types of collaborative plans, called Shared Plans, are formulated for joint goals requiring simultaneous, conjoined or sequential actions on the part of the agents who participate in the plans and the discourse; a fourth type of Shared Plan is presented for the circumstance where two agents communicate, but only one acts.