frames and context
Notice how the following sentences bring in large amounts of
related information.
- Get with the program!
- I finished the program.
- I bought a program car.
- Is there a good program on?
One way we have to describe some of this idea of context is a frame.
A frame represents a collection of "related" information.
You might view your understanding of a sentence as:
You are thinking about something that is your current context.
We will use a frame to describe this context and to build the
program to do the understanding.
Then the sentence to be understood is interpreted in terms of the
current context (frame).
The GUS program uses this idea directly, it assumes that the
two parties in the conversation (GUS and the user) are cooperating.
Both parties understand the context the same, and this is represented
as frames.
Then, if the user provides responses that do not correspond to
what GUS asked for, GUS does not assume the user is not
cooperating, but that user is specifying other slots in the
same frame.
That is, GUS tries to fill in a slot in a frame.
If GUS receives information that does not correspond to the asked for slot,
he will assume the information fills in other slots in the current frame
(or context).