This paper presents a formalization of a theory of informal argumentation, focused on techniques to change attitudes of the interlocutor, in the domain of health promotion

We present an evaluation framework in which the effectiveness of evaluative arguments can be measured with real users. The framework is based on the task-efficacy evaluation method. An evaluative argument is presented in the context of a decision task and measures related to its effectiveness are assessed. Within this framework, we are currently running a formal experiment to verify whether argument effectiveness can be increased by tailoring the argument to the user and by varying the degree of argument conciseness.

The theory of argumentation is a rich, interdisciplinary area of research straddling the fields of artificial intelligence, philosophy, communication studies, linguistics and psychology. In the last few years, significant progress has been made in understanding the theoretical properties of different argumentation logics. However, one major barrier to the development and practical deployment of argumentation systems is the lack of a shared, agreed notation or ‘interchange format’ for argumentation and arguments. In this paper, we describe a draft specification for an argument interchange format (AIF) intended for representation and exchange of data between various argumentation tools and agent-based applications. It represents a consensus ‘abstract model’ established by researchers across fields of argumentation, artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems. In its current form, this specification is intended as a starting point for further discussion and elaboration by the community, rather than an attempt at a definitive, all-encompassing model. However, to demonstrate proof of concept, a use case scenario is briefly described. Moreover, three concrete realizations or ‘reifications’ of the abstract model are illustrated.

this paper on the development and evolution of such a component, the surge system. surge has been widely distributed in the generation community and has been embedded into several complete systems. The goals of reusability and wide coverage have led to a large system and many of the issues faced during the development of the system are issues common to the development of large software systems. From the linguistic side, they have also led to the definition of an input specification language of a relatively low level of abstraction and to a pragmatic approach c fl 1999 Association for Computational Linguistics Computational Linguistics Volume 99, Number 4 to grammar development that integrates several distinct theories into one computational engine. Indeed, while overall surge is organized around the lines of a systemic functional grammar, we have found it efficient to borrow from other linguistic schools (HPSG (Pollard and Sag, 1994)) and descriptive works (Quirk et al., 1985) to implement different aspects of the grammar (for example, control, syntactic pronominalization and binding). We will describe the internal organization of surge in Section 5. However, the main purpose of the paper is to explain the process of embedding surge in complete generation systems and to demonstrate the services surge provides to the generator. The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 illustrates the input specification language to surge informally through a simple example. In Section 3, we explain how the objective of reusability has led to design guidelines for the development of surge. Section 4 describes the interface between a client program and surge by presenting the input specification language and three different methods to construct specifications. Section 5 presents the ...

We have developed a system that generates evaluative arguments that are tailored to the user, properly arranged and concise. We have also developed an evaluation framework in which the effectiveness of evaluative arguments can be measured with real users. This paper presents the results of a formal experiment we have performed in our framework to verify the influence of argument conciseness on argument effectiveness

To produce effective advice several sources of knowledge are needed. Knowledge about the application domain the advice is concerned with is of course necessary, but not sufficient. If the aim of the intervention is inducing people to modify their habits, we also need specific theories of how and why people change behaviour to guide the advising process. In some cases, however, it still does not suffice: when suggesting a change in a well established habit, several factors have to be taken into account, and a good adviser might also need argumentative capabilities, in order to overcome possible personal and environmental barriers to the change. This paper presents a model of advice giving that integrates Artificial Intelligence with concepts and methods coming from different disciplines. The model has been implemented in Daphne, an advice giving system that operates in the nutrition education domain. Keywords. Advice Giving Systems, Argumentation, Health Promotion, Behaviour Modelling, ...

. This paper presents a system for generating user tailored evaluative arguments, known as the Generator of Evaluative Arguments (GEA). GEA design is based on a pipelined architecture commonly used in natural language generation. After an overview description of GEA main components, we focus on how GEA performs the microplanning tasks. Details are provided by examining the generation of a sample argument. 1

Abstract. This document describes a strawman specification for an Argument Interchange Format (AIF) that might be used for data exchange between Argumentation tools or communication in Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). The document started life as a skeleton for contributions from participants in the Technical Forum Group meeting in Budapest in September 2005, receiving also input from third parties. The results were subsequentely improved and added to by online discussion to form a more substantial. In its current form, this document is intended to be a strawman model which serves as a point of discussion for the community rather than an attempt at a definitive, all encompassing model. The hope is that it could provide a useful input to ArgMAS discussion in paricular on the utility of common Argumentation Interchange Formats, what form they might take and a potential research / development agenda to help realise them. 1

This paper presents an approach towards the definition of a formal framework for rhetorical argumentation. Before describing the competence theory behind the framework, we introduce the notion of rhetorical argument, and describe the New Rhetoric, a well known theory in the philosophy of argumentation, upon which our work is based. 1

In this paper, we present a new approach to support the decision of selecting one object out of a set of alternatives. As compared to previous approaches, the distinctive feature of our approach is that neither the user, nor the system need to build a model of user's preferences. Our proposal is to integrate a system for interactive data exploration and analysis with a multimedia explanation facility. The explanation facility supports the user in understanding unexpected aspects of the data. The explanation generation process is guided by a causal model of the domain that is automatically acquired by the system. Introduction With the rapid increase in the amount of on-line, up-to-date information, more and more people, ranging from professional public-policy decision makers to common people, will base their decisions on on-line sources. Thus, there is an increasing need for software systems that support interactive, information-intensive decision making for different user populations ...