OBJECT-ORIENTED RULE-BASED DIALOGUE MANAGEMENT METHOD AND APPARATUS

An object-oriented dialogue manager is provided which allows a computer system or other dialogue processing system to conduct an efficient dialogue with a human user. In an illustrative embodiment, the dialogue manager processes a set of frames characterizing a subject of the dialogue, where each frame includes one or more properties that describe an object which may be referenced during the dialogue. A weight is assigned to each of the properties represented by the set of frames, such that the assigned weights indicate the relative importance of the corresponding properties. The dialogue manager utilizes the weights to determine which of a number of possible responses the system should generate based on a given user input received during the dialogue. The dialogue manager serves as an interface between the user and an application which is ruining on the system and defines the set of frames. The dialogue manager supplies user requests to the application, and processes the resulting responses received from the application. The dialogue manager uses the property weights to determine, for example, an appropriate question to ask the user in order to resolve ambiguities that may arise in execution of a user request in the application.