Oesterreichisches Forschungsinstitut fuer Artificial Intelligence (OeFAI) Schottengasse 3, A-1010 Wien Tel.: +43-1-53361120, Fax: +43-1-5336112-77, Email: sec@ai.univie.ac.at ------------------------------------------------------------------------- VORTRAG ******* Martin CORLEY, Ph.D. University of Edinburgh TOWARDS A SATISFACTORY MODEL OF LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION Until recently, the dominant view in cognitive psychology has been that the processing system endeavours to form the most complete and detailed representation of external stimuli possible (Pylyshyn, 1984). However, a growing body of evidence from work in visual cognition suggests that processing may satisfy a viewer's current needs without resulting in a full analysis. This talk outlines an attempt to discover whether a similar principle governs human language comprehension: our working hypothesis is that humans do not necessarily fully process language, but simply understand enough of the input to satisfy their current communicative needs. We present evidence from current work showing the operation of such a satisfaction principle, and discuss future attempts to work out how it is parameterised. Zeit: Montag, 22.Mai 2000, 18:30 Uhr pktl. Ort: OeFAI, Schottengasse 3, 1010 Wien 1. OESTERREICHISCHES FORSCHUNGSINSTITUT FUER ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE o.Univ.-Prof.Dr.Robert Trappl