Special Issue of the International Journal of Intelligent Systems on
Computational Models of Natural Argument
edited by Chris Reed & Floriana Grasso

Also available in pdf.

The series of workshops on Computational Models of Natural Argument is continuing to attract high quality submissions from researchers around the world. CMNA 2001 was held at ICCS in San Francisco, CMNA 2002 was held at ECAI in Lyon, and in 2003 CMNA was held at IJCAI in Acapulco.

This special issue of the International Journal of Intelligent Systems intends to recognise and consolidate the critical mass that research in the field overlapping Argumentation Theory and Artificial Intelligence has developed in recent years. Potential for exploitation of research in the philosophical theory of argumentation, in informal logic, and in dialectics, have been recognised relatively recently by researchers in artificial intelligence, but already fruits of such cross fertilisation are beginning to ripen. Recent successes include agent system negotiation protocols that demonstrate higher levels of sophistication and robustness; argumentation-based models of evidential relations and legal processes that are more expressive; models of language generation that use rhetorical structures to produce effective arguments; groupwork tools that use argument to structure interaction and debate; computer-based learning tools that exploit monological and dialogical argument structures in designing pedagogic environments; decision support systems that build upon argumentation theoretic models of deliberation to better integrate with human reasoning; and models of knowledge engineering structured around core concepts of argument to simplify knowledge elicitation and representation problems. Furthermore, benefits have not been unilateral for AI, as demonstrated by the increasing presence of AI scholars in classical argumentation theory events and journals.

Areas of Interest:
  • The characteristics of "natural" arguments: ontological aspects and cognitive issues.
  • The use of models from informal logic and argumentation theory, and in particular, approaches to specific schools of thought developed in informal logic and argumentation.
  • The linguistic characteristics of natural argumentation, including discourse markers, sentence format, referring expressions, and style. Empirical work based on corpora looking at these topics would be especially welcomed.
  • The generation of linguistic natural argument: techniques in natural language generation to account for argumentation and persuasion (including techniques for handling discourse goals and structure, speaker/hearer models, content selection, etc.)
  • Rhetoric and affect: the role of emotions, personalities, etc. in models of argumentation.
  • Computational approaches to the similarities and differences between dialogic and monologic argumentation.
  • Issues of domain specificity, and in particular, the independence of argumentation techniques from the domain of application.
  • Language dependence and multilingual approaches to argumentation.
  • The roles of licentiousness and deceit and the ethical implications of implemented systems demonstrating such features.
  • Applications of argumentation based systems, including, for example, the pedagogical, health-related, political, and promotional.
  • Argumentation in multi-agent systems
  • Methods to better convey the structure of complex argument, including representation and summarisation.
  • Natural argumentation and media: visual arguments, multi-modal arguments, spoken arguments.
  • Evaluative arguments and their application in AI systems (such as decision support and advice giving).
  • Non-monotonic, defeasible and uncertain argumentation.
  • Computer supported collaborative argumentation.
  • Computer supported teaching of argumentation and critical thinking skills
  • Tools for interacting with structures of argument, include visualisation tools and interfaces supporting natural, stylised or formal dialogue
  • The building of computational resources such as online corpora related to argumentation


Submission Instructions

The editors would like to encourage submissions in two categories:

  • Long papers, either reporting on completed work or offering a polemic discussion on a burning issue (up to a maximum of 20 typeset pages)
  • Short papers describing late break results or offering concise reports (up to a maximum of 5 typeset pages)

Authors of papers accepted to CMNA 2001, CMNA 2002 and CMNA 2003 are encouraged to revise and resubmit their manuscripts, but the call is open to all.


Important Dates and Deadlines

Deadline for the submission of long papers: 27 February 2004

Deadline for the submission of short papers: 8 April 2004

Notification for all papers: delayed to early July 2004

Papers should be sent to one of the special issue editors:

Chris Reed
Department of Applied Computing
University of Dundee
Dundee DD1 4HN
Scotland
chris@computing.dundee.ac.uk
www.computing.dundee.ac.uk/staff/creed/

Floriana Grasso
Department of Computer Science
University of Liverpool
Liverpool L69 7ZF
England
floriana@csc.liv.ac.uk
www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~floriana/

Last updated 05 Aug 2003
Chris Reed