Generating more natural route descriptions

In this paper we tackle the problem of generating natural route descriptions on the basis of input obtained from a commercially available wayfinding system. We adopt a standard pipelined natural language generation architecture, and focus in particular on the role of the generation subtasks of aggregation and referring expression generation in producing fluent output. Through examples we demonstrate that it is possible to bridge the gap between underlying representation and natural sounding descriptions. Further work along these lines will contribute both to the area of natural language generation and to the improvement of wayfinding system interfaces.

[1]  Nick Cercone,et al.  Selection: Salience, Relevance and the Coupling between Domain-Level Tasks and Text Planning , 1990, INLG.

[2]  Ehud Reiter,et al.  Book Reviews: Building Natural Language Generation Systems , 2000, CL.

[3]  Donia Scott,et al.  Book Reviews: Generating Referring Expressions , 1994, CL.

[4]  Sabine Geldof.  IMPROVING ROUTE DIRECTIONS ON MOBILE DEVICES , 2002 .

[5]  M. Denis,et al.  Spatial discourse and navigation: an analysis of route directions in the city of Venice , 1999 .

[6]  Robert Dale,et al.  Computational Interpretations of the Gricean Maxims in the Generation of Referring Expressions , 1995, Cogn. Sci..

[7]  Bernard Moulin,et al.  Route generation and description using the notions of object's influence area and spatial conceptual map , 1999, Spatial Cogn. Comput..

[8]  Gary Burnett,et al.  ‘Turn right at the Traffic Lights’: The Requirement for Landmarks in Vehicle Navigation Systems , 2000, Journal of Navigation.

[9]  Chris Stolte,et al.  Rendering effective route maps: improving usability through generalization , 2001, SIGGRAPH.

[10]  Lynn A. Streeter,et al.  How to Tell People Where to Go: Comparing Navigational Aids , 1985, Int. J. Man Mach. Stud..

[11]  Michael Zock,et al.  Automatic Generation Of Subway Directions: Salience Gradation As A Factor Fordetermining Message And Form , 1998, INLG.

[12]  Stephan Winter,et al.  Enriching Wayfinding Instructions with Local Landmarks , 2002, GIScience.

[13]  Catherine I. Watson,et al.  A profile of the discourse and intonational structures of route descriptions , 1999, EUROSPEECH.

[14]  Hercules Dalianis,et al.  Aggregation in Natural Language Generation , 1999 .

[15]  Jörg Baus,et al.  Visual Grounding of Route Descriptions in Dynamic Environments , 1995 .