Jean-louis Dessalles - Publications

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Selected topic: Cognitive modelling of relevance in argumentative discussions

During spontaneous conversation, individuals engage in discussions. This behaviour is made possible by their ability to detect logical inconsistencies and to perceive contradictions between facts and desires. I introduced the notion of cognitive conflict. I am proposing a minimal procedure named CAN: Conflict-Abduction-Negationon that aims at capturing the human argumentative competence. According to the model, individuals use CAN to solve a shared cognitive conflict.

My papers on this topic (ARGUMENTATION)

1. Dessalles, J-L. (2011). Reasoning as a lie detection device (Commentary on Mercier and Sperber:’Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory’). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 34 (2), 76-77.
   Keywords: ARGUMENTATION EVOLUTION
   The biological function of human reasoning abilities cannot be to improve shared knowledge. This is at best a side effect. A more plausible function of argumentation, and thus of reasoning, is to advertise one's ability to detect lies and errors. Such selfish behavior iscloser to what we should expect from a naturally selected competence.
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2. Dessalles, J-L. (2008). A computational model of argumentation in everyday conversation: a problem-centred approach. In P. Besnard, S. Doutre & A. Hunter (Eds.), Computational Models of Argument - Proceedings of COMMA 2008, 128-133. Amsterdam: IOS Press.
   Keywords: ARGUMENTATION
   Human beings share a common competence for generating relevant arguments. We hypothesize the existence of a cognitive procedure that enables them to determine the content of their arguments. We consider that this procedure must be simple to have cognitive plausibility. This paper is an attempt to determine central aspects of this cognitive procedure. The originality of the present approach is to analyse spontaneous argument generation as a process in which arguments either signal problems or aim at solving previously acknowledged problems.
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3. Dessalles, J-L. (2007). A computational model of argumentation in everyday conversation: a problem-centred approach. Technical Report ParisTech-ENST 2007D017.
   Keywords: ARGUMENTATION
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4. Dessalles, J-L. (2001). La récursivité dans le dialogue argumentatif. In B. Chaib-Draa & P. Enjalbert (Eds.), Actes des journées francophones ’Modèles formels de l’interaction’ (MFI-01), 49-59. Toulouse: Université de Toulouse.
   Keywords: ARGUMENTATION
   Les interventions, au cours d'un dialogue argumentatif, sont logiquement reliées les unes aux autres. De ce fait, l'agencement des répliques prend une forme arborescente, qui apparaît comme une structure fractale : la structure locale d'une partie du dialogue ressemble à la structure qui l'englobe. Nous montrons ensuite comment une telle structure peut être vue comme le résultat de l'application récursive d'une procédure de génération d'arguments. Nous envisageons enfin la faisabilité d'une capacité artificielle de dialogue construite autour d'une telle procédure récursive.
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5. Dessalles, J-L. & Ghadakpour, L. (1999). L’activité scientifique en tant que comportement naturel ancré sur le conflit cognitif. In , Conflits des interprétations et interprétation des conflits - Actes des journées de Rochebrune, 87-98. Paris: ENST.
   Keywords: ARGUMENTATION
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6. Dessalles, J-L. (1998). The interplay of desire and necessity in dialogue. In J. Hulstijn & A. Nijholt (Eds.), Proccedings of the Workshop on Formal Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue (TWENDIAL-98) - Twente Workshop on Language Technology (TWLT-13), 89-97. Enschede: University of Twente.
   Keywords: ARGUMENTATION
   The purpose of this paper is to suggest that many argumentative moves in casual dialogues can be explained in terms of conflicting desires and conflicting beliefs, in such a way that some of these moves may be predicted. Participants appraise the different outcomes of the conflicting situation and try to find, together, through dialogue, a solution that they consider as acceptable. We show how realistic dialogues can emerge through a simple recursive process from an initial cognitive conflict. This model is implemented in our program PARADISE which can reconstruct the argumentative moves of some real conversations.
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7. Dessalles, J-L. (1998). Casual conversation as logical constraint satisfaction. In J. Allwood (Ed.), Proceedings of the European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI-98), Workshop on Pragmatics and Logic, 27-34. Saarbruecken: Saarbruecken Universität.
   Keywords: ARGUMENTATION
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8. Dessalles, J-L. (1998). On pragmatic competence. In , Celebration: An electronic festschrift in honor of Noam Chomsky’s 70th birthday. http://mitpress.mit.edu/celebration.
   Keywords: CONVERSATION ARGUMENTATION
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9. Dessalles, J-L. (1996). Pourquoi est-on, ou n’est-on pas, pertinent ?. Communication et Langages, 107, 69-80.
   Keywords: CONVERSATION ARGUMENTATION
   Disposons-nous d'une grande liberté lorsque nous choisissons de communiquer ? Non, bien sûr, pas toujours, mais dans les situations sociales décontractées comme la conversation entre amis, personne ne pourrait prétendre que notre comportement est fortement contraint. Quoique... Il semble que nous soyons soumis, sans en avoir conscience la plupart du temps, à une contrainte extrêmement sévère : la contrainte de pertinence. Lors d'une conversation spontanée, une réplique non pertinente provoque un rejet systématique (« Pourquoi dis-tu cela ? ») plus ou moins agressif. Plus généralement, tout acte de communication se doit d'être pertinent. Un être humain qui ne produit plus d'énoncés pertinents est vite considéré comme un malade mental. D'où vient cette contrainte, comment fonctionne-t-elle, quel est son rôle ?.
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10. Dessalles, J-L. (1993). Usage naturel du langage: modèle, simulation et application à l’apprentissage. In O. Boussaid, M. Brissaud & et al. (Eds.), Pluridisciplinarité dans les sciences cognitives - Actes du colloque de l’Association Internationale pour le Développement de la Recherche Interdisciplinaire (AIDRI-92), 180-193. Paris: Hermès.
    Keywords: ARGUMENTATION LEARNING
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11. Dessalles, J-L. (1992). Les contraintes logiques des conversations spontanées. Paris: Rapport Technique ENST 92-D-011.
    Keywords: CONVERSATION ARGUMENTATION
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12. Dessalles, J-L. (1992). Model-based surprise and explanation: a way to negotiate concepts. In P. Brezillon (Ed.), Proceedings of the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI-92), Workshop on Improving the Use of Knowledge-Based Systems with Explanations, 107-113. Paris: Université Paris VI.
    Keywords: ARGUMENTATION LEARNING
    We present here an analysis of a specific form of explanation that can be found in naturally occurring conversations, and that may be needed by users of KBS: explanations as answers to surprises that follow a discrepancy between expectations and reality. We describe a tutoring system based on this type of explanation: SAVANT3 systematically looks for reasons to be surprised, so that the student feels compelled to give explanations. We examine the requirements that a system has to meet to be able to produce this kind of explanation based on a preliminary surprise.
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13. Dessalles, J-L. (1992). Logical constraints on spontaneous conversation. Paris: Technical Report ENST 92-D-011.
    Keywords: CONVERSATION ARGUMENTATION
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14. Dessalles, J-L. (1992). From knowledge to conversation: a computational model of conversation. Technical Report ENST 92-D-019.
    Keywords: ARGUMENTATION
15. Dessalles, J-L. (1992). L’incidence logique de l’interaction dans la communication d’informations. Technologies Idéologies Pratiques, 10 (2-4), 325-335.
    Keywords: CONVERSATION ARGUMENTATION
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16. Dessalles, J-L. (1990). The simulation of conversations. In T. Kohonen & F. Fogelman-Soulié (Eds.), Proceedings of the Cognitiva-90 Symposium, 483-492. Amsterdam: North Holland.
    Keywords: ARGUMENTATION
    We try to show here how the structure of conversations can be explained by taking into account the logical knowledge that the speakers must possess to perform their replies. This study starts with the careful examination of observed excerpts taken from recorded spontaneous conversations. Next we express the minimal knowledge of each speaker by means of a special logical representation (modalities and paradoxical clauses). The PARADISE program is then able to reconstruct the dynamic chaining of replies from this static knowledge. The capabilities of PARADISE allow us to make three points. First they legitimize the use of logic and present it as an essential tool for spontaneous human speech analysis. Second, the strategies used by PARADISE give some indication of the unconscious strategies used by human speakers. And third, we mention how these results could lead to significant improvements of man-machine interface in knowledge-based systems.
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