APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PORTABLE DIALOGUE MANAGEMENT USING A HIERARCHIAL TASK DESCRIPTION TABLE

A portable dialogue management system includes a dialogue manager and a hierarchical task description table. The hierarchical task description table has a plurality of base tables connected with a hierarchical structure. Each base table defines the strategy of a sub-dialogue and stores the dialogue states, a number of domain parameters, and a plurality of response actions corresponding to each dialogue state. The dialogue manager manages the dialogue state of a dialogue system, determines the dialogue state and executes the appropriate response action. Because the domain knowledge is defined in the hierarchical task description table and the dialogue manager is not dependent on the application domain, the dialogue management system is easily portable to different applications. A stack may also be used to push in or pop up a dialogue state so that dialogues of multiple purposes can be accomplished.