Professional summarizing: no cognitive simulation without observation

Professional summarizing includes the cognitive processes of abstracting, indexing, and classifying as performed by expert summarizers who prepare records for bibliographic information systems. In order to simulate their skilled performance, a “grounded” (or “naturalistic”) cognitive model of expert summarization has been developed, using 54 working processes of 6 experts recorded by thinking-aloud protocols. The working processes comprise up to 140 working steps. The model is explained in the following using the abstracting step Trueby-2 executed by the expert Marliese. Components of the model are a toolbox of empirically founded strategies, principles of process organization, and interpreted working steps where the interaction of cognitive strategies can be investigated. In the computerized simulation, the SimSum (Simulation of Summarizing) system, cognitive strategies are represented by object-oriented agents grouped around dedicated blackboards. While the main scientific goal of the system is to check and improve the cognitive model, the system also serves practical presentation purposes. It will be distributed on CD-ROM as part of a textbook and thus help to explain the cognitive task of summarizing. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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