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Managing ambiguity in reference generation: the role of surface structure.
Imtiaz H Khan1, Kees van Deemter, Graeme Ritchie
1Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Computing & IT, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, P.O. Box 80200, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 21589. ihkhan@kau.edu.sa
Topics in Cognitive Science
|April 13, 2012
Summary
Algorithms should minimize ambiguous referring expressions for better human comprehension. Studies show clear, though potentially syntactically ambiguous, phrases are preferred, with brevity favored when clarity is equal.
Area of Science:
- Computational Linguistics
- Natural Language Generation
- Human-Computer Interaction
Background:
- Referring expressions can suffer from surface ambiguities, impacting their effectiveness.
- Adjective coordination is a common source of such ambiguities in natural language.
- Optimizing referring expressions requires considering the hearer's interpretation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of surface ambiguities in referring expressions.
- To develop an algorithm for generating optimally effective referring expressions.
- To account for the risk of ambiguities in algorithm design.
Main Methods:
- Utilized statistical information on lexical co-occurrence to predict human interpretation.
- Conducted three experiments with human participants to gather data on phrase interpretation, suitability, and reading speed.
- Employed Kilgarriff's Word Sketches to precisely define the notion of clarity.
Main Results:
- Human participants showed a preference for clear expressions over ambiguous ones.
- When multiple expressions were clear, shorter, syntactically ambiguous phrases were preferred over longer, unambiguous ones.
- An algorithm was developed and implemented based on these findings.
Conclusions:
- Minimizing ambiguity in referring expressions is crucial for hearer effectiveness.
- Clarity is a primary factor, followed by brevity when clarity is comparable.
- The developed algorithm successfully generates noun phrases adhering to these principles.
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