Alan M. Wallington

Domain-transcending mappings in a system for metaphorical reasoning

We illustrate how the use of metaphorical views for reasoning with metaphor requires the mapping of information such as event shape, event rate and mental/emotional states from the source domain to the target domain. Such mappings are domain-independent and can be implemented by means of rules we call View Neutral Mapping Adjuncts (VNMAs). We give a list of the main VNMAs that appear to be required, and show how they can be incorporated into a pre-existing system (ATT-Meta) for metaphorical reasoning.

Reasoning in metaphor understanding: the ATT-Meta approach and system

A detailed approach has been developed for core aspects of the task of understanding a broad class of metaphorical utterances. The utterances in question are those that depend on known metaphorical mappings but that nevertheless contain elements not mapped by those mappings. A reasoning system has been implemented that partially instantiates the theoretical approach. The system, called ATT Meta, will be demonstrated. The paper briefly indicates how the system works, and outlines some specific aspects of the system, approach and the overall project.

Exploitation in Affect Detection in Open-Ended Improvisational Text

We report progress on adding affect-detection to a program for virtual dramatic improvisation, monitored by a human director. We have developed an affect-detection module to control an automated virtual actor and to contribute to the automation of directorial functions. The work also involves basic research into how affect is conveyed through metaphor. The project contributes to the application of sentiment and subjectivity analysis to the creation of emotionally believable synthetic agents for interactive narrative environments.

Exploitation in affect detection in improvisational e-drama

We report progress on adding affect-detection to a program for virtual dramatic improvisation, monitored by a human director. To aid the director, we have partially implemented emotion detection. within users’ text input. The affect-detection module has been used to help develop an automated virtual actor. The work involves basic research into how affect is conveyed through metaphor and contributes to the conference themes such as building improvisational intelligent virtual agents for interactive narrative environments.

Metaphorical reasoning with an economical set of mappings

This paper discusses the nature of the metaphorical transfer from the source domain to the target domain. More specifically, it explores the question as to how the mapping links between features of the source and the target are created. It is argued that, for many metaphors, it is incorrect to assume that all the elements of the source domain map to elements of the target domain, and that a much more economical set of mappings should be used instead.

Affect Transfer by Metaphor for an Intelligent Conversational Agent

We discuss an aspect of an affect-detection system used in edrama by intelligent conversational agents, namely affective interpretation of limited sorts of metaphorical utterance. Our system currently only deals with cases, which we found to be quite common in edrama, in which a person is compared to, or stated to be, something non-human such as an animal, object, artefact or supernatural being. Our approach permits a limited degree of variability and extension of these metaphors. We discuss how these metaphorical utterances are recognized, how they are analysed and their affective content determined and in particular how the electronic lexical database, WordNet, and the natural language glosses of the WordNet sysnsets can be used. We also discuss how this relatively shallow approach relates in important ways to the deeper ATT-Meta theory of metaphor interpretation and to approaches to affect and emotion in metaphor theory. We finish by illustrating the approach with a number of ‘worked examples’.

Don't worry about metaphor: affect detection for conversational agents

We demonstrate one aspect of an affect-extraction system for use in intelligent conversational agents. This aspect performs a degree of affective interpretation of some types of metaphorical utterance.

Default inferences in metaphor interpretation

In this paper we provide a formalization of a set of default rules that we claim are required for the transfer of information such as causation, event rate and duration in the interpretation of metaphor. Such rules are domainindependent and are identified as invariant adjuncts to any conceptual metaphor. Furthermore, we show the role that these invariant mappings play in a semantic framework for metaphor interpretation.

On the formalization of Invariant Mappings for Metaphor Interpretation

In this paper we provide a formalization of a set of default rules that we claim are required for the transfer of information such as causation, event rate and duration in the interpretation of metaphor. Such rules are domain-independent and are identified as invariant adjuncts to any conceptual metaphor. We also show a way of embedding the invariant mappings in a semantic framework.

Affect and Metaphor in an ICA: Further Developments

We describe a computational treatment of certain sorts of affect-conveying metaphorical utterances. This is part of an affect detection system used by intelligent conversational agents (ICAs) operating in an edrama system.