Generalizations based on explanations

GENERALIZATIONS BASED ON EXPLANATIONS Gerald DeJong Coordinated Science Laboratory University of Illinois 1101 West Springfield Avenue Urbana, IL 61801 This paper describes a new project at the University of Illinois in computer learning. The phenomenon under study is a kind of "insight learning" of procedural schemata. The system described here is designed to grasp some principle underlying a natural language input. Once acquired, the schema serves the same purpose as the other schemata in the system: it aids in processing future natural language inputs. The neutral term "schema" rather than "frame" (Minsky (1975), Charniak (1976)) or "script" (Schank A Abelson (1977)) is used to refer to knowledge chunks because a frame (which is used to describe static objects as well as progressions of world situations) is too general a notion, and the notion behind a script is-too specific.