Man-Machine Interaction in Check

The paper presents an "ideal scenario" for man-machine interaction in diagnostic expert sys­ tems in medicine and discusses how and at what extent the interface of CHECK obeys the requirements. The architecture of CHECK (a diagnostic system in the field of hepatology, able to reason both at heuristic level and at causal one) is sketched. The acquisition of data has been subdivided into "receptive", "evoca­ tive" and "exploratory" phases, whereas the explanation mechanism exploits the causal knowledge. The advantages of a graphical interface are also discussed.