David K. Elson

Masters student and programmer, delson@cs.columbia.edu

Title: Tell Me a Story: Narrative Theory and Story Models

Time: Thursday September 25, 11:30-12:30

Abstract:

In this talk I will introduce the field of narrative intelligence, which draws upon AI, NLP, psychology and literary theory. I will describe the basic structure of a story, distinguishing between discourse, plot and "fabula." I will then present the problem of "interestingness" in narrative, and give a history of some of the many models proposed for understanding and generating logical and compelling stories. Finally, I will propose a new type of model, and look ahead to the way that it may provide the impetus for a new Newsblaster summarizer.