Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 23:01:25 GMT Server: NCSA/1.5 Content-type: text/html Last-modified: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 18:37:32 GMT Content-length: 4240 Barbara J. Grosz

DIVISION OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCES
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Barbara J. Grosz
Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science


Artificial Intelligence

Professor Grosz's research in artificial intelligence deals with problems in natural-language processing and collaborative planning. She is attempting to identify the basic structures and processes by which people use languages to communicate information and is developing mechanisms to enable computer systems to communicate fluently with users in natural languages (e.g., English, Spanish, Japanese). More generally, Professor Grosz hopes to improve human-computer communication by utilizing techniques that combine speech, graphics, and other modalities. Her current work encompasses: computational theories of discourse and discourse processing, computational models of collaborative planning, investigations of the interactions between intonation and discourse, and the development of collaborative, multimedia systems for human-computer communication.

Professor Grosz has developed a theory of discourse structure that specifies how discourse interpretation depends on interactions among speaker intentions, attentional state, and linguistic form. This theory has been used to explain such phenomena as interruptions, the use of cue phrases, and the interpretation of referring expressions. With colleagues at AT&T Bell Laboratories, she is using the theory to study the information about discourse structure conveyed by intonation, i.e., how tones demark, in spoken language, some of the structure that paragraphs and parentheses indicate in written language. Applications of this work should lead to better computer speech-synthesis systems. In addition, Professor Grosz is also involved in an interdisciplinary investigation of the connections between centering of attention and form of reference.

Professor Grosz is also working on a theory of collaboration to support the construction of intelligent computer "agents" that work together in teams. This theory also provides a basis for modeling the intentional component of discourse structure.

Recent Publications


Aiken Computation Laboratory, Room G19
33 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
E-mail: grosz@eecs.harvard.edu

For information about the contents of this page, requests for articles,
or other information, please contact secretary, Bree Horwitz - Tel. (617) 495 3963.

Revised 20-August-1996