DOCUMENT RESUME'. ED 150 955 IR 005 492 AUTHOR Lehnert, Wendy TITLE The Process'of Question Answering. Research Report No. 88. ..t. SPONS AGENCY Advanced Research Projects Agency (DOD), Washington, D.C. _ PUB DATE May 77 CONTRACT ,N00014-75-C-1111 . ° NOTE , 293p.;- Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University 'ERRS' PRICE NF -$0.83 1C- $15.39 Plus Post'age. DESCRIPTORS .*Computer Programs; Computers; *'conceptual Schemes; *Information Processing; *Language Classification; *Models; Prpgrai Descriptions IDENTIFIERS *QUALM; *QuOion Answering Systems . \ ABSTRACT / The cOmputationAl model of question answering proposed by a .lamputer program,,QUALM, is a theory of conceptual information processing based 'bon models of, human memory organization. It has been developed from the perspective of' natural language processing in conjunction with story understanding systems. The p,ocesses in QUALM are divided into four phases: (1) conceptual categorization; (2) inferential analysis; (3) content specification; and (4) 'retrieval heuristict. QUALM provide a concrete criterion for judging the strengths and weaknesses'of store representations. As a theoretical model, QUALM is intended to describ general question answerinlg, where question antiering is viewed as a erbal communicb.tion device betieen people. (Author/KP) . A. 1 *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied'by EDRS are the best that can be made' * from. the original document. ********f******************************************,******************* 1,