B (2013) Integrating meta-level and domain-level knowledge for interpretation and generation of task-oriented dialogue

There is general agreement that knowledge plays a key role in intelligent behavior, but most work on this topic has emphasized domain-specific expertise. We argue, in contrast, that cognitive sys-tems also benefit from meta-level knowledge that has a domain-independent character. In this paper, we propose a representational framework that distinguishes between these two forms of con-tent, along with an integrated architecture that supports their use for abductive interpretation and hierarchical skill execution. We demonstrate this framework’s viability on high-level aspects of extended dialogue that require reasoning about, and altering, participants ’ beliefs and goals. Fur-thermore, we demonstrate its generality by showing that the meta-level knowledge operates with different domain-level content. We conclude by reviewing related work on these topics and dis-cussing promising directions for future research. 1