Heuristic Methods for Computer Understanding of Natural Language in Context-Restricted On-Line Dialogues

This computer program accepts expressions in natural language as on-line input. It searches each expression for syntactic and semantic patterns. When a pattern match is discovered an appropriate reply is typed out in natural language so that a continuing dialogue develops between person and program. The dialogue is restricted to the context of interpersonal relations such as occurs in a psychiatric interview. The program is an interpreter/supervisor written in SUBALGOL and runs on a 32K IBM 7090 connected via a direct-data device to a PDP-1 and a Philco console.