Information disclosing apparatus and multi-modal information input/output system

Abstract

A data storage means stores data in a predetermined information form. An information retrieval means retrieves the data stored in the data storage means. A reception means receives an information disclosure demand from a demander, a response rule storage means for storing general knowledge for generating a response responding to the demander and a personal relationship information associated with a unique personal relationship between a user having the data on an information provider side and a user on an information demander side. A response plan formation means, responsive to the demand received by the reception means, plans a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by causing the retrieval means to retrieve the data stored in the data storage means on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in the response rule storage means. A response generation means generates the response to the information demander in accordance with the plan formed by the response plan formation means.

Claims

What is claimed is:

1. An information disclosing apparatus comprising:

data storage means for storing data in a predetermined information form;

information retrieval means for retrieving the data stored in said data storage means;

demand reception means for receiving an information disclosure demand from an information demander;

response rule storage means for storing knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique hierarchal personal relationship between a user having the data on an information provider side and a user on an information demander side;

response plan formation means, responsive to the demand received by said demand reception means, for planning a response for exhibiting, to the information demander data obtained by causing said information retrieval means to retrieve the data stored in said data storage means on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said response rule storage means; and

response generation means for generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the plan formed by said response plan formation means;

wherein said response plan formation means plans a range of data to be disclosed to the information demander or contents of a message to the information demander in accordance with the personal relationship information.

2. An information disclosing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said response rule storage means stores a connection method to another information disclosing apparatus in storing data from said another information disclosing apparatus in said data storage means, and said response plan formation means looks up said response rule storage means to plan a response which provides the connection method to said another information disclosing apparatus when a demand associated with data obtained from said another information disclosing apparatus is made from the information demander.

3. An information disclosing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising means for managing feature information associated with a target field in which the user on the information demander side is interested, and means for disclosing the feature information to said information disclosing apparatus.

4. An information disclosing apparatus comprising:

data storage means for storing data in a predetermined information form;

information retrieval means for retrieving the data stored in said data storage means;

demand reception means for receiving an information disclosure demand from an information demander;

response rule storage means for storing knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique hierarchal personal relationship between a user having the data on an information provider side and a user on an information demander side;

response plan formation means, responsive to the demand received by said demand reception means, for planning a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by causing said information retrieval means to retrieve the data stored in said data storage means on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said response rule storage means; and

response generation means for generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the plan formed by said response plan formation means;

wherein said response rule storage means stores a connection method to another information disclosing apparatus in said data storage means, and said response plan formation means looks up said response rule storage means to plan a response which provides the connection method to said another information disclosing apparatus when a demand associated with data obtained from said another information disclosing apparatus is made from the information demander.

5. An information disclosing apparatus comprising:

data storaqe means for storinq data in a predetermined information form;

information retrieval means for retrieving the data stored in said data storage means;

demand reception means for receiving an information disclosure demand from an information demander;

response rule storage means for storing knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique hierarchal personal relationship between a user having the data on an information provider side and a user on an information demander side;

response plan formation means, responsive to the demand received by said demand reception means, for planning a response for exhibiting to the information demander, data obtained by causing said information retrieval means to retrieve the data stored in said data storage means on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said response rule storage means; and

response generation means for generatinq the response to the information demander in accordance with the plan formed by said response plan formation means;

wherein the personal relationship information includes at least one of information associated with a social relationship between the user on the information provider side and the user on the information demander side, and information associated with an individual relationship there between;

wherein said response rule storage means stores a connection method to another information disclosing apparatus in storing data from said another information disclosing apparatus in said data storage means, and said response plan formation means looks up said response rule storage means to plan a response which provides the connection method to said another information disclosing apparatus when a demand associated with data obtained from said another information disclosing apparatus is made from the information demander.

6. An information disclosing apparatus comprising:

data storage means for storing data in a predetermined information form;

information retrieval means for retrieving the data stored in said data storage means;

demand reception means for receiving an information disclosure demand from an information demander;

response rule storage means for storing knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique hierarchal personal relationship between a user having the data on an information provider side and a user on an information demander side;

response plan formation means, responsive to the demand received by said demand reception means, for planning a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by causing said information retrieval means to retrieve the data stored in said data storage means on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said response rule storage means;

response generation means for generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the plan formed by said response plan formation means; and

means for managing feature information associated with a target field in which the user on the information demander side is interested, and means for disclosing the feature information to said information disclosing apparatus.

7. An information disclosing apparatus, comprising:

demand reception means for receiving a demand of a demander which is input in a predetermined information form;

response rule storage means for storing general knowledge for generating a response responding to the demander or a status;

response plan formation means, responsive to the demand received by said demand reception means, for planning a response exhibited to the demander using the knowledge stored in said response rule storage means;

response generation means for generating the response to the demander in accordance with the plan formed by said response plan formation means;

history storage means for storing the demand of the demander which has been received by said demand reception means and the response generated by said response generation means to the demand so as to cause the demand to correspond to the response; and

history editing means for performing at least one of recording, a change, and deletion of the history information stored in said history storage means in accordance with an instruction from the demander.

8. An information disclosing apparatus, comprising:

data storage means for storing data in a predetermined information form;

demand reception means for receiving an information disclosure demand from an information demander;

retrieval means for retrieving the data from the data storage means in response to the demand received by the demand reception means;

analysis means for analyzing an intention and emotions associated with a user on an information demander side in response to the demand received by said demand reception means;

response plan formation means for planning a response to the information demander on the basis of an analysis result of said analysis means; and

response generation means for generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the plan formed by said response plan formation means.

9. An information disclosing apparatus according to claim 8, further comprising:

status check means for checking whether a line can be directly connected between the information demander and an information provider having the data;

direct line connection decision means for deciding to directly connect the line between the information demander side and the information provider having the data on the basis of the analysis result of said analysis means and a check result of said status check means; and

direct line connection execution means for directly connecting the line in accordance with a result of said direct line connection decision means.

10. An information disclosing apparatus, comprising:

data storage means for storing data in a predetermined form;

data information storage means for storing data information describing a confidentiality and a degree of difficulty for individual data stored in said data storage device;

user information storage means for storing user information describing a right and a degree of familiarity for each data to each individual information demander;

retrieval presentation means for retrieving and presenting data for a data presentation demand from the information demander on the basis of the data information;

input/output means for performing input/output between the information demander and an information provider for managing said information disclosing apparatus;

response history storage means for storing response history information representing a history of a response of said information disclosing apparatus using said input/output means between the information demander and the information provider; and

editing means for forming or changing the data information on the basis of the response history information when data satisfactory to a demand of the information demander cannot be presented and the information provider directly responds to the information demander or presents demand data to the information demander.

11. An information disclosing apparatus, comprising:

data storage means for storing data in a predetermined form;

data information storage means for storing data information describing a confidentiality and a degree of difficulty for each data stored in said data storage device;

user information storage means for storing user information describing a right and a degree of familiarity for each data to each individual information demander;

retrieval presentation means, responsive to a data presentation demand from the information demander, for retrieving and presenting data of the confidentiality and the degree of difficulty corresponding to the right and the degree of familiarity of the information demander on the basis of the user information and the data information which correspond to the information demander;

input/output means for performing input/output between the information demander and an information provider for managing said information disclosing apparatus;

response history storage means for storing response history information representing a history of a response of said information disclosing apparatus using said input/output means between the information demander and the information provider; and

editing means for forming or changing the data information and the user information of the information demander on the basis of the response history information when data satisfactory to a demand of the information demander cannot be presented and the information provider directly responds to the information demander or presents demand data to the information demander.

12. A multi-modal information input/output system having means for inputting at least one of user language information and instruction information through an input medium having at least one form including a speech input, and means for performing at least one of accumulation processing, data processing, recognition processing, and understanding processing for the input language information or the input instruction information, characterized by comprising:

means for understanding at least one of an intention, emotions, and a status of a user from the speech input of the user.

13. An information disclosing apparatus, comprising:

data storage means for storing data in a predetermined information form;

information retrieval means for retrieving the data stored in said data storage means;

demand reception means for receiving an information disclosure demand from an information demander;

response rule storage means for storing general knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique personal relationship between a user having the data on an information provider side and a user on an information demander side;

understanding means for understanding at least one of intention, emotion and status of the user from a speech input of the user;

response plan formation means, responsive to the demand received by said demand reception means, for planning a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by causing said information retrieval means to retrieve the data stored in said data storage means on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said response rule storage means, and at least one of the intention, the emotion and the status of the user obtained from the understanding means; and

response generation means for generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the plan formed by said response plan formation means.

14. An information disclosing apparatus, comprising:

data storage means for storing data in a predetermined information form;

information retrieval means for retrieving the data stored in said data storage means;

demand reception means for receiving an information disclosure demand from an information demander;

input means for inputting speech data of a user;

extraction means for extracting intention and emotional data of the user from the input speech data;

response rule storage means for storing general knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique hierarchical personal relationship between a user having the data on an information provider side and a user on an information demander side;

response plan formation means, responsive to the demand received by said demand reception means, for planning a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by causing said information retrieval means to retrieve the data stored in said data storage means on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said response rule storage means, and the intention and the emotional data extracted by the extraction means; and

response generation means for generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the plan formed by said response plan formation means.

15. Information disclosing method for an information disclosing apparatus which discloses data owned by an information provider to an information demander, said method comprising the computer steps of:

a) storing in a memory data in a predetermined information form;

b) storing in a memory general knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique hierarchical personal relationship between a user having the data on the information provider side and a user on the information demander side;

c) receiving an information disclosure demand from the information demander;

d) planning, responsive to the received information disclosure demand, a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by retrieving the data stored in said memory on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said memory; and

e) generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the response plan.

16. The method according to claim 15, wherein the personal relationship information includes at least one of information associated with a social relationship between the user on the information provider side and the user on the information demander side, and information associated with an individual relationship therebetween.

17. The method according to claim 16, wherein said step b) further includes a step of storing a connection method to another information disclosing apparatus in storing data from said another information disclosing apparatus in said memory; and

said step d) further includes a step of planning a response which provides the connection method to said another information disclosing apparatus when a demand associated with data obtained from said another information disclosing apparatus is made from the information demander.

18. The method according to claim 16, further comprising:

a step of managing feature information associated with a target field in which the user on the information demander side is interested; and

a step of disclosing the feature information to said information disclosing apparatus.

19. The method according to claim 15, wherein the planning of the response plans a range of data to be disclosed to the information demander or contents of a message to the information demander in accordance with the personal relationship information.

20. The method according to claim 19, wherein said step b) further includes a step of storing a connection method to another information disclosing apparatus in storing data from said another information disclosing apparatus in said memory; and

said step d) further includes a step of planning a response which provides the connection method to said another information disclosing apparatus when a demand associated with data obtained from said another information disclosing apparatus is made from the information demander.

21. The method according to claim 19, further comprising:

a step of managing feature information associated with a target field in which the user on the information demander side is interested; and

a step of disclosing the feature information to said information disclosing apparatus.

22. The method according to claim 15, wherein said step b) further includes a step of storing a connection method to another information disclosing apparatus in storing data from said another information disclosing apparatus in said memory; and

said step d) further includes a step of planning a response which provides the connection method to said another information disclosing apparatus when a demand associated with data obtained from said another information disclosing apparatus is made from the information demander.

23. The method according to claim 15, further comprising:

a step of managing feature information associated with a target field in which the user on the information demander side is interested; and

a step of disclosing the feature information to said information disclosing apparatus.

24. The method according to claim 23, further comprising a step of storing and managing, in accordance with categories in units of fields, the feature information associated with a target field in which the user on the information demander side is interested.

25. The method according to claim 24, further comprising a step of using as a degree of concern quantitative information including the number and size of cases for information classified in units of categories and quantitative information including the number of accesses and presenting appropriate one of a plurality of candidates in accordance with the degree of concern.

26. The method according to claim 24, further comprising a step of detecting localization of pieces of information classified into the categories, prompting the user to correct the arrangement of classes, to thereby permit the user directly input and edit the classes.

27. The method according to claim 23, further comprising a step of disclosing intention estimation information extracted in the past interactive operations with the information to the individual information disclosing apparatus of the information demander with a demand for disclosing the feature information associated with a target field in which the user on the information demander side is interested.

28. The method according to claim 27, further comprising a step of determining the corresponding appropriate category on the basis of the received intention estimation information.

29. A method for disclosing information for an information disclosing apparatus which discloses data owned by an information provider to an information demander, said method comprising the computer steps of:

a) storing general knowledge for generating a response responding to the demander or a status;

b) receiving a demand of the demander which is input in a predetermined information;

c) planning, responsive to the received demand, a response exhibited to the demander using the stored knowledge;

d) generating the response to the demander in accordance with the plan formed;

e) storing the demand of the demander which has been received and the response generated to the demand so as to cause the demand to correspond to the response; and

f) performing at least one of recording, a change, and deletion of the history information in accordance with an instruction from the demander.

30. A method for disclosing information for an information disclosing apparatus which discloses data owned by an information provider to an information demander, said method comprising the computer steps of:

a) storing data in a predetermined information format;

b) receiving an information disclosure demand from the information demander;

c) retrieving the stored data in response to the received demand;

d) analyzing an intention and emotions associated with a user on the information demander side in response to the received demand;

e) planning a response to the information demander on the basis of an analysis result; and

f) generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the formed plan.

31. The method according to claim 30, further comprising the computer steps of:

g) checking whether a line can be directly connected between the information demander and an information provider having the data;

h) deciding to directly connect the line between the information demander and the information provider having the data on the basis of the analysis result and a check result; and

i) directly connecting the line in accordance with a result of the decision result.

32. A method for disclosing information for an information disclosing apparatus which discloses information owned by an information provider to an information demander, said method comprising the computer steps of:

a) storing data in a predetermined format;

b) storing data information describing a confidentiality and a degree of difficulty for individual stored data;

c) storing user information describing a right and a degree of knowledge for each data to each individual information demander;

d) retrieving and presenting data for a data presentation demand from the information demander on the basis of the data information;

e) performing input/output between the information demander and the information provider for managing said information disclosing apparatus;

f) storing response history information representing a history of a response of said information disclosing apparatus between the information demander and the information provider; and

g) forming or changing the data information on the basis of the response history information when data satisfactory to a demand of the information demander cannot be presented and the information provider directly responds to the information demander or presents demand data to the information demander.

33. A method for disclosing information for an information disclosing apparatus which discloses information owned by an information provider to an information demander, said method comprising the computer steps of:

a) storing data in a predetermined form;

b) storing data information describing a confidentiality and a degree of difficulty for each stored data;

c) storing user information describing a right and a degree of knowledge for each data to each individual information demander;

d) retrieving and presenting data of the confidentiality and the degree of difficulty corresponding to the right and the degree of familiarity of the information demander on the basis of the user information and the data information which correspond to the information demander;

e) performing input/output between the information demander and an information provider for managing said information disclosing apparatus;

f) storing response history information representing a history of a response of said information disclosing apparatus between the information demander and the information provider; and

g) forming or changing the data information and the user information of the information demander on the basis of the response history information when data satisfactory to a demand of the information demander cannot be presented and the information provider directly responds to the information demander or presents demand data to the information demander.

34. A method for performing input/output of multi-modal information, comprising the computer steps of:

a) inputting at least one of user language information and instruction information through an input medium having at least one form including a speech input; and

b) performing at least one of accumulation processing, data processing, recognition processing, and understanding processing for the input language information or the input instruction information, the understanding processing understanding at least one of an intention, emotions, and a status of a user from the speech input of the user.

35. A method for disclosing information for an information disclosing apparatus which discloses information owned by an information provider to an information demander, said method comprising the computer steps of:

a) storing data in a predetermined information form in a memory;

b) storing, in said memory, general knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique hierarchical personal relationship between a user having the data on an information provider side and a user on an information demander side;

c) receiving an information disclosure demand from the information demander;

d) understanding at least one of intention, emotion and status of the user from a speech input of the user;

e) planning, responsive to the received demand, a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by retrieving the data stored in said memory on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said memory, and at least one of the intention, the emotion and the status of the user; and

f) generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the formed plan.

36. A method for disclosing information for an information disclosing apparatus which discloses information owned by an information provider to an information demander, said method comprising the computer steps of:

a) storing, in a memory, data in a predetermined information form;

b) storing, in said memory, general knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique hierarchical personal relationship between a user having the data on an information provider side and a user on an information demander side;

c) receiving an information disclosure demand from an information demander;

d) inputting speech data of a user; information retrieval means for retrieving the data stored in said data storage means;

e) extracting intention and emotional data of the user from the input speech data;

f) planning, responsive to the received demand, a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by retrieving the stored data on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said memory, and the extracted intention and the emotional data; and

g) generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the formed plan.

37. An information disclosing apparatus, comprising:

data storage means for storing data in a predetermined information form;

information retrieval means for retrieving the data stored in said data storage means;

demand reception means for receiving an information disclosure demand from an information demander;

response rule storage means for storing knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique personal relationship between a user having the data on an information provider side and a user on an information demander side, the response rule storage means storing a connection method to another information disclosing apparatus in said data storage means;

response plan formation means, responsive to the demand received by said demand reception means, for planning a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by causing said information retrieval means to retrieve the data stored in said data storage means on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said response rule storage means, the response plan formation means looking up said response plan storage means to plan a response which provides the connection method to said another information disclosing apparatus when a demand associated with data obtained from said another information disclosing apparatus is made from the information demander; and

response generation means for generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the plan formed by said response plan formation means.

38. An information disclosing apparatus according to claim 37, wherein the personal relationship information includes at least one of information associated with a social relationship between the user on the information provider side and the user on the information demander side, and information associated with an individual relationship therebetween.

39. An information disclosing apparatus according to claim 37, wherein said response plan formation means plans a range of data to be disclosed to the information demander in accordance with the personal relationship information.

40. An information disclosing apparatus, comprising:

data storage means for storing data in a predetermined information form;

information retrieval means for retrieving the data stored in said data storage means;

demand reception means for receiving an information disclosure demand from an information demander;

response rule storage means for storing knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique personal relationship between a user having the data on an information provider side and a user on an information demander side;

response plan formation means, responsive to the demand received by said demand reception means, for planning a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by causing said information retrieval means to retrieve the data stored in said data storage means on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said response rule storage means;

response generation means for generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the plan formed by said response plan formation means; and

means for managing feature information associated with a target field in which the user on the information demander side is interested, and means for disclosing the feature information to said information disclosing apparatus.

41. Information disclosing method for an information disclosing apparatus which discloses data owned by an information provider to an information demander, said method comprising the computer steps of:

a) storing in a memory data in a predetermined information form;

b) storing in a memory general knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique personal relationship between a user having the data on the information provider side and a user on the information demander side;

c) receiving an information disclosure demand from the information demander;

d) planning, responsive to the received information disclosure demand, a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by retrieving the data stored in said memory on the basis of the I<knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said memory, the planning step planning a range of data to be disclosed to the information demander or contents of a message to the information demander in accordance with the personal relationship information; and

e) generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the response plan.

42. Information disclosing method for an information disclosing apparatus which discloses data owned by an information provider to an information demander, said method comprising the computer steps of:

a) storing in a memory data in a predetermined information form;

b) storing in a memory general knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique personal relationship between a user having the data on the information provider side and a user on the information demander side, the storing step including a step of storing a connection method to another information disclosing apparatus in storing data from said another information disclosing apparatus in said memory;

c) receiving an information disclosure demand from the information demander;

d) planning, responsive to the received information disclosure demand, a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by retrieving the data stored in said memory on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said memory, the planning step including a step of planning a response which provides the connection method to said another information disclosing apparatus when a demand associated with data obtained from said another information disclosing apparatus is made from the information demander; and

e) generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the response plan.

43. Information disclosing method for an information disclosing apparatus which discloses data owned by an information provider to an information demander, said method comprising the computer steps of:

a) storing in a memory data in a predetermined information form;

b) storing in a memory general knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique personal relationship between a user having the data on the information provider side and a user on the information demander side, the personal relationship information including at least one of information associated with a social relationship between the user on the information provider side and the user on the information demander side, and information associated with an individual relationship therebetween, and the storing step including a step of storing a connection method to another information disclosing apparatus in storing data from said another information disclosing apparatus in said memory;

c) receiving an information disclosure demand from the information demander;

d) planning, responsive to the received information disclosure demand, a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by retrieving the data stored in said memory on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said memory, the planning step including a step of planning a response which provides the connection method to said another information disclosing apparatus when a demand associated with data obtained from said another information disclosing apparatus is made from the information demander; and

e) generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the response plan.

44. Information disclosing method for an information disclosing apparatus which discloses data owned by an information provider to an information demander, said method comprising the computer steps of:

a) storing in a memory data in a predetermined information form;

b) storing in a memory general knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique personal relationship between a user having the data on the information provider side and a user on the information demander side, the storing step including a step of storing a connection method to another information disclosing apparatus in storing data from said another information disclosing apparatus in said memory;

c) receiving an information disclosure demand from the information demander;

d) planning, responsive to the received information disclosure demand, a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by retrieving the data stored in said memory on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said memory, the planning step planning a range of data to be disclosed to the information demander or contents of a message to the information demander in accordance with the personal relationship information, and the planning step including a step of planning a response which provides the connection method to said another information disclosing apparatus when a demand associated with data obtained from said another information disclosing apparatus is made from the information demander; and

e) generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the response plan.

45. Information disclosing method for an information disclosing apparatus which discloses data owned by an information provider to an information demander, said method comprising the computer steps of:

a) storing in a memory data in a predetermined information form;

b) storing in a memory general knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique personal relationship between a user having the data on the information provider side and a user on the information demander side;

c) receiving an information disclosure demand from the information demander;

d) planning, responsive to the received information disclosure demand, a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by retrieving the data stored in said memory on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said memory;

e) generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the response plan;

f) managing feature information associated with a target field in which the user on the information demander side is interested;

g) disclosing the feature information to said information disclosing apparatus;

h) disclosing intention estimation information extracted in the past interactive operations with the information to the individual information disclosing apparatus of the information demander with a demand for disclosing the feature information associated with a target field in which the user on the information demander side is interested;

i) determining the corresponding appropriate category on the basis of the received intention information.

46. Information disclosing method for an information disclosing apparatus which discloses data owned by an information provider to an information demander, said method comprising the computer steps of:

a) storing in a memory data in a predetermined information form;

b) storing in a memory general knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique personal relationship between a user having the data on the information provider side and a user on the information demander side;

c) receiving an information disclosure demand from the information demander;

d) planning, responsive to the received information disclosure demand, a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by retrieving the data stored in said memory on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said memory;

e) generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the response plan;

f) managing feature information associated with a target field in which the user on the information demander side is interested;

g) disclosing the feature information to said information disclosing apparatus;

h) storing and managing, in accordance with categories in units of fields, the feature information associated with a target field in which the user on the information demander side is interested; and

i) using as a degree of concern quantitative information including the number and size of cases for information classified in units of categories and quantitative information including the number of accesses and presenting appropriate one of a plurality of candidates in accordance with the degree of concern.

47. Information disclosing method for an information disclosing apparatus which discloses data owned by an information provider to an information demander, said method comprising the computer steps of:

a) storing in a memory data in a predetermined information form;

b) storing in a memory general knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique personal relationship between a user having the data on the information provider side and a user on the information demander side;

c) receiving an information disclosure demand from the information demander;

d) planning, responsive to the received information disclosure demand, a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by retrieving the data stored in said memory on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in said memory;

e) generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the response plan;

f) managing feature information associated with a target field in which the user on the information demander side is interested;

g) disclosing the feature information to said information disclosing apparatus;

h) storing and managing, in accordance with categories in units of fields, the feature information associated with a target field in which the user on the information demander side is interested; and

i) detecting localization of pieces of information classified into the categories, prompting the user to correct the arrangement of classes, to thereby permit the user to directly input and edit the classes.

48. A method for disclosing information for an information disclosing apparatus which discloses data owned by an information provider to an information demander, said method comprising the computer steps of:

a) storing data in a predetermined information format;

b) receiving an information disclosure demand from the information demander;

c) retrieving the stored data in response to the received demand;

d) analyzing an intention and emotions associated with a user on the information demander side in response to the received demand;

e) planning a response to the information demander on the basis of an analysis result;

f) generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the formed plan;

g) checking whether a line can be directly connected between the information demander and an information provider having the data;

h) deciding to directly connect the line between the information demander and the information provider having the data on the basis of the analysis result and a check result; and

i) directly connecting the line in accordance with a result of the decision result.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to an information disclosing apparatus for disclosing data owned by individuals to third parties, and a multi-modal information input/output system.

2. Description of the Related Art

(1) The environments of networks in each university and each business enterprise and networks connecting universities, business enterprises, or homes have been recently prepared. Along with the cost reduction in information communication equipments and memory devices, each individual can actively or passively receive to have a large amount of information. However, exchange of the large amount of information causes a flood with information. It becomes difficult for an end user to collect necessary information from wide network environments due to the limited capacity and time of the end user. Even a user who is familiar to a network to some extent is difficult to find information of a profession different from his own profession. Each end user relies on another user who may have necessary information or another user who may know the source of the information.

In environments where individual persons have a wealth of sources and are active, access to a user having an information collection and filtering capacity is concentrated. Even the user having such a capacity cannot take time only to provide information. It takes time to understand the contents of each individual question and provide a proper answer. Smooth information exchange is interfered by delays, omissions, and misunderstanding because such exchange is performed by a communication means on a network, thus further increasing the wasteful time.

In order to solve the above problem, there is provided a method in which information owned by each user is disclosed and searched by a necessary user as needed. It is difficult and takes time to exhibit an information structure which is accessible to any user. Information constantly increases and changes, and the information structure itself must be changed accordingly. To assure security and perform smooth communications, the range of information to be disclosed and its exhibition method must change depending on partners. These management operations are not enjoyable in proportion to the required time. Even a user familiar to data collection tends to stay away from these time-consuming operations. For this reason, most of users who have a large amount of information forget the locations of the information, and such information becomes dead information. A user who wants to find necessary information must find it from all pieces of information of another user who may have this information. When the information structure is complicated, the retrieval operation becomes time-consuming. The problem is posed even in use of an existing database if the user is not familiar to the retrieval function of this database. As a result, the filing capacity of each individual is not utilized.

In order to solve this problem, an agent function is proposed in which necessary information is collected from a network in response to an instruction given by a user. When the user does not have knowledge of information retrieval environments, an accurate instruction cannot be given. When a time lag is present from the input of an instruction to the end of retrieval or the report of a result, the deficiency of an instruction causes repetition of the trial and error, resulting in wasting the time. To solve this problem, it is difficult to realize an advanced instruction analysis function capable of causing an end user to simply input a complicated instruction, or to impart a wealth of knowledge for network environments to an agent.

If a retrieval destination is individual information, a time lag tends to occur because a permission must be obtained from an owner unless necessary information is obvious disclosed information. A user who discloses information is required for extra operations if the range of contents to be disclosed varies depending on different partners. Even a user who obtains or makes a permission may hate watching information of others or hate others to watch his own information. The pieces of information owned by each individual have different formats and structures. It is very difficult for an agent to notify all these different formats and structures. It is difficult to force to standardize these pieces of information because they are owned by different individuals.

An attempt has been made to virtually reproduce working place environments (virtual office) in a computer, a worker located in the working place is expressed as an agent, and simple question-answer processing is performed in accordance with a response from the agent even in the absence of a worker (Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 6-95997). If the type of task is limited to a specific field, a multi-modal interface system sample capable of performing a sales operation in place of a salesperson is manufactured (e.g., Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 5-216618). Such a system, however, has the outer appearance designed by a system designer and outputs responses based on predetermined knowledge expressions and response rules. The system is not developed to an end user so as to disclose individual information and knowledge of his own in an arbitrary form. If a system does not have a certain degree of freedom, the expressions of the user who discloses information cannot be satisfied. At the same time, a user who wants to obtain information cannot be interested in standardized answers. Therefore, this system may be used for only regular business operation information.

(2) Since computers have recently been popular, automation using computers has spread over in a variety of fields. At the same time, a natural interface is implemented so as to allow an end user to use a computer. In particular, along with the improvement of recognition techniques, research and development have been made for a multi-modal interface system capable of understanding the intention of a user from the natural language uttered by the user or an image or speech and responding to the user. A smooth interactive operation between a machine and a user is impossible without using various behaviors of users.

As in a video camera for a cash dispenser, the response history between users and the machine may often be recorded to assure the security and manage the system. In an information retrieval system involving charges and copyrights, a history representing a correspondence between specific information and a specific user who is provided with the specific information must be positively recorded.

A user who uses such a system worries about easy recording of a response history because this may infringe privacy and the right of likeness. A possibility of misuse of the response history is normally regarded to be low because the social pressure acts on an enterprise which manages the system. In a public message exchange system such as a message dial, a message registered once cannot be deleted, but a message can be checked and reentered prior to its registration. When a predetermined period of time has elapsed, the record is erased.

Along with the development of multi-modal interface techniques, it is possible for an end user to offer an information service through such a system. In this case, the management of a response history depends on the intention of the user who offers the service. A possibility of misuse of this response history becomes high because of a low social pressure acting on the end user and careless management. That is, a user who enjoys the service may not stand in front of a video camera or microphone with a sense of security.

(3) Along with the preparation of network environments, information collected by individuals tends to be actively shared by a plurality of users. Operations such as formation of an agent function on this network, disclosure of necessary individual information, or collection of other individual information have been considered.

Pieces of individual information disclosed to many and unspecified persons are classified into information which can be disclosed to users and information which cannot be disclosed to them. In addition, the disclosure enable range changes. That is, agent operations must change depending on different users.

The agent operations change depending on different users in the following attempt. The priority is determined in advance in accordance with the ranks, posts, and question contents of users, and the agent operations are decided in accordance with this priority. The reliability of a user for an agent (finally the reliability of a user for an information provider) is actually updated in every conversation. An agent is desired to take proper steps to meet the instantaneously changing statuses of users without being restricted to the rules. This also applies to Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 6-95997 and Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKOKU Publication No. 6-79304 in which the current status of an information provider is analyzed by an explicit user's demand to directly connect a line.

When an agent cannot meet the demand of a user, the right to answer is transferred to the information provider. It is easily anticipated that a line is directly connected to the information provider every time the agent cannot answer a question. In this case, the operation efficiency of the information provider is degraded, and an effect resulting from the use of an agent cannot be obtained.

In addition, the arrangement of acquired information in an optimal category, and setup of an appropriate disclosure range are time-consuming jobs to the information provider.

(4) Along with the development of database techniques and communication network techniques, a system having a variety of functions and forms has recently been proposed as a system for retrieving information demanded by a user and providing it to the user. For example, a database service retrieves information covered by a subscription to a user as a subscriber in accordance with a demand falling within a predetermined range and providing the retrieved information to the user. A CAI system provides an answer or teaching to a student's question so as to match the degree of familiarity of the student. A claim processing system and a guide system to a customer receives a demand in a form specified in each business operation and provides information. Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 6-95997 proposes a method for automating an information providing job to the third party using an agent serving as a human agency business system.

These various types of information providing systems are effective in the corresponding services and business operations, and their forms are limited to provide predetermined specific data to specific users. For example, in a most advanced CAI system, information matching the degree of familiarity of students and the progress of curricula of students is effectively provided on the basis of the user model of students. The range of this most advanced CAI system aims at education in a specific field and is limited only to provide information to specific users as students.

At present as well as in the future, most of pieces of electronic information stored in a computer are data owned by individual persons at individual sites. Exchange of these pieces of information is performed through electronic mails, news systems, and the like. Each individual person manually acquires or provides information. The acquisition of information depends on knowledge associated with individual knowledge associated with specific locations and persons as information sources (e.g., human relationships and networks). Information is provided by only the voluntary activity of each individual person, e.g., by an answer to a question through an electronic mail. Under these circumstances, data owned by each individual person cannot be effectively utilized and are possessed among persons having a certain human relationship. The voluntary information exchange activity of each individual person is limited. The time and labor required to answer to a question through, e.g., an electronic mail cannot be neglected. Therefore, the information disclosing jobs performed by individual persons must be automated and supported.

Information has an indefinite form and makes it difficult to determine meanings and forms in advance. Users who demand to provide information personally are not classified as, e.g., customers in the database service and students in the CAI system. For this reason, the information disclosing system for regular business operations, as described above, cannot perform human agency business for flexible and careful information exchange performed between users. That is, a method of changing a method of providing information depending on different users and a means for setting conditions for changes in information providing method have not been established.

Conditions for disclosing information generally change over time, and no countermeasure is not taken for this problem. A means for correcting a system failure resulting from the inappropriate disclosure of information has not been realized, either.

Various problems are posed to realize an information disclosing apparatus for effectively and safely disclosing useful information, owned by individual persons, in place of users.

Data owned by individual persons have various meanings, forms, confidentialities, and the degrees of difficulty. Application programs for retrieving and presenting these data are not standardized. To arrange these data for disclosure is difficult and requires much labor.

Various types of persons are assumed as information demanders who demand information to information providers. It is difficult with much labor to assume all responses to the demands from the various types of persons. In particular, whether private information of an information provider is disclosed or how information within a specific range is disclosed depends on various factors such as the personal relationship between the information provider and an information demander, ages and sexes of the users, and organizations to which the users belong.

The confidentiality and the degree of difficulty of data owned by an information provider as well as the right and the degree of familiarity of an information demander dynamically change over time. Even if the method and limitations for disclosing a variety of information to a variety of persons are set in detail, these may become invalid with a lapse of time. Even if the information disclosing apparatus fails to provide information which can meet a user's demand, it is desired not to repeat the failure in the same status.

As has been described above, a conventional information disclosing apparatus has the following problems:

(1) A large amount of information collected by individual persons cannot be easily disclosed in a conventional information disclosing apparatus. There is no means for adjusting the degree of disclosure from an information owner to specific types of persons.

(2) In a conventional information disclosing apparatus, a response history is managed by a person who owns the information disclosing apparatus. For this reason, a user who feels doubt to the manager of the response history cannot use this information disclosing apparatus.

(3) The conventional information disclosing apparatus does not have a means for dynamically reflecting the status of a user and its change in a negotiation step with an agent and disclosing information so as to take proper steps to meet instantaneously changing status of the user.

There is no means for grasping the status of an information provider and considering an effective countermeasure to the information provider.

There are neither a means for arranging acquired information in a proper category nor a means for reflecting a negotiation process and other negotiations and flexibly correcting the disclosure range.

(4) The conventional information disclosing apparatus has no means for providing countermeasures for a personal relationship between an information provider and an information demander which dynamically changes with time or for the confidentiality and the degree of difficulty of data owned by the information provider. Therefore, it is difficult to constantly disclose information in an easy and appropriate form.

In recent years, human interfaces employing a plurality of information transmission means possessed by men, such as a natural language interface/multi-modal interface, have been enthusiastically created.

In addition to a variety of media, transmission of emotions between speakers plays an important role as a factor for efficiently progressing interactive operations. In practice, the interactive operations do not often reach a conclusion due to differences in contextual recognition and interpretation of utterance intentions between speakers. These circumstances necessitate an apparatus for supporting extraction/recognition/transmission of the psychological status or emotions of a speaker.

As for recognition and understanding, and synthesis of the intention and emotional information of speech, a variety of studies have been reported, such as Kanazawa et. al. (Journal of the Electronics, Information, and Communication Engineers of Japan D-11, Vol. J77-D-11, No. 8, pp. 1,512-1,521) and Cahn et. al. ("Generating Expression in Synthesized Speech", Technical Report, Masachusett Institute of Technology, 1990).

These are based on "rhythmic information" such as the pitch and accents of speech signals, and intention information and emotional information such as anger, joy, sorrow, agreement, admiration, and connection are recognized/understood and generated.

An attempt has been made to recognize emotions from a character string expressing emotions in a text. Examples are Fujimoto et. al. proposing a scheme (Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKOKU Publication No. 6-822376) in which emotional information included in a word string is extracted using an emotion dictionary registered upon numerical conversion of emotional information in units of words and a scheme (Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKOKU Publication No. 6-822377) having rules for converting the emotion information on the basis of a syntactic analysis result.

The above schemes extract emotions included in one sentence or utterance, but do not recognize the emotions of a user throughout the interactive operation. In practice, the emotions of users often vary depending on situations or statuses even if the same utterance or verbal expression is used. In addition, utterances or verbal expressions for expressing the emotions vary depending on different users.

An attempt has been made to recognize the emotions of main characters in accordance with the narration of a story. Studies by W. G. Lehnert et. al. ("The Role of Affect in Narrative Structure", Cognition and Emotion, 1987, pp. 299-322) and M. G. Dyer ("Emotions and their Computations: Three Computer Models", 1987, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Limited) have been reported. The situation is recognized in accordance with sentences described in a natural language to reason the emotional states of the main characters. The verbal expression and situation which represent emotions are extracted from the narration of the story. However, the emotions and situation using only the contents of utterances and conversations of the main characters is not recognized.

Interactive systems having chat structure models to generate appropriate responses for the utterance intentions of users have also been extensively studied. Examples of interactive operations of texts are proposed by Sumida et. al. ("Consideration of Naturalness of Responses in Question-Answer System", Shigaku Giho NLC86-16, pp. 25-32, 1986) and Ukita et. al. ("Equipment Manipulation Guide System by Natural Language Input", Shigaku Giho OS-88-18, pp. 13-18, 1988). An example of interactive operations of speech is proposed by Araki et. al. ("Understanding of Utterances Using Structure of Interactive Operations and Concept of Words", Joho Shori Gakkai, 42nd National Meeting, 3, pp. 61-62, 1991). These prior arts aim at recognizing a user's intention corresponding to the situation from a user's utterance or input text and generating an appropriate response. However, they do not recognize the emotions of the user.

In an information disclosing apparatus and a multi-modal information input/output system described in Japanese Patent Application No. 7-86266, emotion recognition is decided using emotion information included in one sentence or utterance. Information associated with the status of an interactive operation is not utilized.

As described above, no conventional information disclosing apparatus has a means for analyzing the emotions of a user on the basis of the status of the interactive operation. For this reason, it becomes difficult to generate a response in consideration of the emotions of the user. Misunderstanding occurs in the interactive operations to erroneously understand the intention of the user. In this manner, an unnecessary mental load is imposed on the user.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An object of the present invention is to provide an information disclosing apparatus for interactively disclosing information as an agent of each individual owner who owns information.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an information disclosing apparatus capable of reflecting the intention of an information demander in management of a response history between the information disclosing apparatus and the information demander as a user.

Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an information disclosing apparatus capable of dynamically analyzing the statuses of an information demander and an information provider who are users and selecting an appropriate countermeasure to both the information provider and the information demander.

It is still another object of the present invention to provide a multi-modal information input/output system capable of understanding the intention, emotions, and status of a user and greatly improving the satisfaction and comfort of a user.

It is still another object of the present invention to provide an information disclosing apparatus capable of efficiently forming and correcting information associated with data to be disclosed and information associated with an information demander as a user, in order to disclose a variety of information owned by individual persons in a form suitable for a variety of types of persons.

(1) The present invention is characterized by comprising data storage means for storing data in a predetermined information form (e.g., a text, speech, an image, and a moving picture), information retrieval means for retrieving the data stored in the data storage means, demand reception means for receiving an information disclosure demand from an information demander, response rule storage means for storing general knowledge for generating a response responding to the information demander and personal relationship information associated with a unique personal relationship between a user having the data on an information provider side and a user on an information demander side, response plan formation means, responsive to the demand received by the demand reception means, for planning a response for exhibiting, to the information demander, data obtained by causing the information retrieval means to retrieve the data stored in the data storage means on the basis of the knowledge and the personal relationship information stored in the response rule storage means, and response generation means for generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the plan formed by the response plan formation means.

The present invention is preferably characterized in that the personal relationship information includes at least one of information associated with a social relationship between the user on the information provider side and the user on the information demander side, and information associated with an individual relationship therebetween.

The present invention is preferably characterized in that the response plan formation means plans a range of data to be disclosed to the information demander or contents of a message to the information demander in accordance with the personal relationship information.

The present invention is preferably characterized by further comprising response rule management means for performing formation, change, and addition for knowledge stored in the response rule storage means, wherein the response rule management means is preferably characterized to allow a specific user to perform formation, change, and addition for the knowledge stored in the response rule storage means.

The present invention is preferably characterized by further comprising response feature information storage means for storing information representing a response feature (e.g., an outer appearance, a nature, and a tone color) unique to the response plan formation means, and response feature information management means for allowing a specific user to perform formation, a change, and addition of the information stored in the response feature information storage means, wherein the response plan formation means forms a response plan so as to maintain a unique response feature.

The present invention is preferably characterized in that either the response rule storage means comprises a plurality of response rule storage means or the response feature information storage means comprises a plurality of response feature information storage means, or both the response rule storage means comprises a plurality of response rule storage means and the response feature information storage means comprises a plurality of response feature information storage means, wherein the response plan formation means switches one or both of the response rule storage means and the response feature information storage means in accordance with an information demander or a status.

The present invention is preferably characterized in that the response rule storage means stores a connection method to another information disclosing apparatus in storing data from the another information disclosing apparatus in the data storage means, and the response plan formation means looks up the response rule storage means to plan a response which provides the connection method to the another information disclosing apparatus when a demand associated with data obtained from the another information disclosing apparatus is made from the information demander.

The present invention is preferably characterized in that when it is determined that an answer cannot be formed, the response plan formation means plans a response for demanding another information disclosing apparatus as a substitute information disclosing apparatus to form a response in accordance with contents of the response rule storage means, and the response rule management means performs addition and updating of the contents of the response rule storage means on the basis of the response from another information disclosing apparatus as the substitute information disclosing apparatus.

The present invention is preferably characterized by further comprising status determination means for observing behaviors of another information demander and another information disclosing apparatus, wherein the response plan formation means searches a disclosure partner on the basis of determination of the status determination means and plans a response for causing the partner to generate a demand to a home user.

The present invention is preferably characterized in that the demand reception means receives contract information associated with a start of a contract of an information demander and revocation of the contract, the response rule management means stores user contract information received by the demand reception means in the response rule storage means, and the response plan formation means looks up the contract information in the response rule storage means and observes a behavior of an information demander who has a predetermined contract condition using the status determination means.

The present invention is preferably characterized by further comprising means for managing feature information associated with a target field in which the user on the information demander side is interested, and means for disclosing the feature information to the information disclosing apparatus.

The present invention is preferably characterized by further comprising information retrieval presentation means for estimating contents of data desired by the information demander with use of the feature information disclosed by the information demander, extracting the data of the estimated contents from the data storage means, and disclosing the extracted data to the information demander.

(2) The present invention is characterized by comprising demand reception means for receiving a demand of a demander which is input in a predetermined information form, response rule storage means for storing general knowledge for generating a response responding to the demander or a status, response plan formation means, responsive to the demand received by the demand reception means, for planning a response exhibited to the demander using the knowledge stored in the response rule storage means, response generation means for generating the response to the demander in accordance with the plan formed by the response plan formation means, history storage means for storing the demand of the demander which has been received by the demand reception means and the response generated by the response generation means to the demand so as to cause the demand to correspond to the response, and history editing means for performing at least one of recording, a change, and deletion of the history information stored in the history storage means in accordance with an instruction from the demander.

The present invention is preferably characterized in that the history editing means sets an editing right in accordance with contents of the history information and edits history information in which the demander has the editing right.

(3) The present invention is characterized by comprising data storage means for storing data in a predetermined information form (e.g., a text, speech, an image, and a moving picture), demand reception means for receiving an information disclosure demand from an information demander, retrieval means for retrieving the data from the data storage means in response to the demand received by the demand reception means, analysis means for analyzing an intention and emotions associated with a user on an information demander side in response to the demand received by the demand reception means, response plan formation means for planning a response to the information demander on the basis of an analysis result of the analysis means, and response generation means for generating the response to the information demander in accordance with the plan formed by the response plan formation means.

The present invention is preferably characterized by further comprising status check means for checking whether a line can be directly connected between the information demander and an information provider having the data, direct line connection decision means for deciding to directly connect the line between the information demander side and the information provider having the data on the basis of the analysis result of the analysis means and a check result of the status check means, and direct line connection execution means for directly connecting the line in accordance with a result of the direct line connection decision means.

The present invention is preferably characterized in that the response plan formation means forms a personal relationship model from personal relationship information between the user on the information provider side and the user on the information demander side and edits the personal relationship model in accordance with the contents of an interactive operation, thereby estimating a change in user emotions on the information demander side.

The present invention is preferably characterized by further comprising negotiation outline exhibition means for exhibiting a negotiation outline or contents in the form of a figure or table to the information demander, so that a reference for causing the information provider side to decide to directly connect a line is presented to the information provider side.

The present invention is preferably a multi-modal information input/output system having means for inputting at least one of user language information and instruction information through an input medium (e.g., a keyboard input, a mouse input, and a pen input in addition to the speech input) having at least one form including a speech input, and means for performing at least one of accumulation processing, data processing, recognition processing, and understanding processing for the input language information or the input instruction information, characterized by comprising means for understanding at least one of an intention, emotions, and a status of a user from the speech input of the user.

The present invention is preferably characterized by further comprising means for presenting at least one of linguistic speech accompanying emotional information and nonverbal utterances accompanying the emotion information.

(4) The present invention is characterized by comprising data storage means for storing data in a predetermined form, data information storage means for storing data information describing a confidentiality and a degree of difficulty for individual data stored in the data storage means, user information storage means for storing user information describing a right and a degree of familiarity for each data to each individual information demander, retrieval presentation means for retrieving and presenting data for a data presentation demand from the information demander on the basis of the data information, input/output means for performing input/output between the information demander and an information provider for managing the information disclosing apparatus, response history storage means for storing response history information representing a history of a response of the information disclosing apparatus using the input/output means between the information demander and the information provider, and editing means for forming or changing the data information on the basis of the response history information when data satisfactory to a demand of the information demander cannot be presented and the information provider directly responds to the information demander or presents demand data to the information demander.

The present invention is characterized by comprising data storage means for storing data in a predetermined form (e.g., a text, speech, an image, and a moving picture), data information storage means for storing data information describing a confidentiality and a degree of difficulty for each data stored in the data storage means, user information storage means for storing user information describing a right and a degree of familiarity for each data to each individual information demander, retrieval presentation means, responsive to a data presentation demand from the information demander, for retrieving and presenting data of the confidentiality and the degree of difficulty corresponding to the right and the degree of familiarity of the information demander on the basis of the user information and the data information which correspond to the information demander, input/output means for performing input/output between the information demander and an information provider for managing the information disclosing apparatus, response history storage means for storing response history information representing a history of a response of the information disclosing apparatus using the input/output means between the information demander and the information provider, and editing means for forming or changing the data information and the user information of the information demander on the basis of the response history information when data satisfactory to a demand of the information demander cannot be presented and the information provider directly responds to the information demander or presents demand data to the information demander.

The present invention is preferably characterized in that each user information stored in the user information storage means is described with the confidentiality of the user information itself, and when the information demander demands to present user information of a given user, the user information is presented in accordance with a right of the information demander and the confidentiality of the user information.

The present invention is preferably characterized in that when a demand is made by the information demander to present data which should not be presented in terms of a right of the information provider himself and a degree of familiarity, user information in which the right and the degree of familiarity to the data are higher than the confidentiality and the degree of difficulty of the data and in which the information demander has a right to the user information itself is selected from the user information stored in the user information storage means, and the information demander is notified so as to demand for user data represented by the selected user information. (1) Since the present invention has personal relationship information of individual persons who own information, an information disclosing method can change depending on partners. According to the present invention, individual information can be disclosed to appropriate partners. Only necessary information is disclosed by an interactive interface. Therefore, the third party can easily use the information filing capacity of each individual person, and a time required for information disclosure and retrieval can be shortened.

(2) Since the present invention has a function of permitting to record and reproduce information transmitted by a user in an interactive operation with the apparatus, a user history cannot be stored against the intention of the user. There can also be provided an information disclosing apparatus capable of permitting not only recording, but also addition, editing, and deletion by the user. Therefore, according to the present invention, the user can interact with the apparatus or through the apparatus with a sense of security to store his history.

(3) According to the present invention, not only countermeasures are determined in accordance with the registered posts and question contents of users, but also the status of a user is dynamically analyzed in accordance with a negotiation process, and flexible information disclosure and a countermeasure are determined. As a result, user reliability for the processing capability of the information disclosing apparatus can be improved. A line can be directly connected to a user in consideration of the current status of the information provider. Therefore, the conventional load acting on an information provider who must be engaged in all negotiations failed by the information disclosing apparatus can be reduced.

In a multimedia system according to the present invention, it is found that parallel processing between language information and non-language information and between intentional user information and non-intentional user information is important. Based on this point, the parallel processing nature of the speech medium is utilized to realize a comfortable, natural, warm interactive operation with a computer as a user-centered multi-modal interface. In particular, understanding for the intention, emotions, and status of the user using language information by a keyboard, a mouse, a pen, or a speech input as well as non-language information mainly using an instruction information input and speech can greatly improve the satisfaction and comfort of the user.

(4) The right and the degree of familiarity of the information demander, and the confidentiality and the degree of difficulty of data itself dynamically change. Information associated with the right, degree of familiarity, the confidentiality, and the degree of difficulty must be appropriately changed and formed to present appropriate data. According to the present invention having the above arrangement, these pieces of information can be automatically or interactively updated and formed on the basis of interactive operation history between the information demander, the information disclosing apparatus, and the information provider. The load of these jobs on the information provider can be reduced. The right, the degree of familiarity, the confidentiality, and the degree of difficulty associated with the information demander and the disclosure data can be appropriately, easily, and efficiently performed. That is, according to the present invention, data to be disclosed can be flexibly changed in accordance with the right and the degree of familiarity of the information demander.

Further, an information disclosing apparatus according to the present invention comprises: input means for inputting data in a plurality of forms including a text, speech, an image, and a pointing position, extraction means for extracting an intention and emotion information of a user from the data input by the input means, response plan formation means for forming a response plan on the basis of an extraction result from the extraction means, and response generation means for generating a response to the user on the basis of this formed response plan is characterized by comprising emotion recognition means for recognizing an emotional state of the user on the basis of an internal state of the response plan formation means, the extracted intention and emotion information of the user, and a shift of interactive operation status information including a type of the formed response plan along a time axis, wherein the response plan formation means selects or changes a response strategy in accordance with a recognition result of the emotion recognition means and forms a response plan matching the response strategy.

According to the present invention, a user emotion corresponding to an interactive operation status is recognized to allow generation of a response corresponding to a response strategy made in consideration of the user emotion. More specifically, in addition to an answer to a demand explicitly expressed by a user, an appropriate response is generated also in consideration of an implicit demand. The metal load on the user can be reduced, and an interactive operation can be smoothly and efficiently performed. In this case, the intention and emotion of the user can be accurately understood not by a single input form, but by using a plurality of input information such as a text, speech, and an image. A plurality of response forms are combined and used to know a change in emotional state of the user, thereby selecting a response form matching the favor and status of the user.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a view showing the arrangement of a basic system including an information disclosing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a view showing the arrangement of an information disclosing apparatus according to the first embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing a processing flow of the first embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a view showing an example of a response with a user;

FIG. 5 is a view showing an example of a state transient chart of a disclosing agent;

FIG. 6 is a view showing an example of a state transient chart of a user;

FIG. 7 is a view showing an example of a user history information table;

FIG. 8 is a view showing an example of a user information registration table;

FIG. 9 is a view showing an example of access permission level decision rules;

FIG. 10 is a view showing an example of a disclosure permission range table;

FIG. 11 is a view for explaining an example of a method of deciding a response form;

FIG. 12 is a view showing an example of a response plan list;

FIG. 13 is a view showing an example of response formation rules;

FIG. 14 is a view showing an example of a greeting response plan;

FIG. 15 is a view showing an example of a term registration table;

FIG. 16 is a view showing an example of user demand items;

FIG. 17 is a view showing an example of a response with a user;

FIG. 18 is a view showing an example of an utterance intention obtained from an utterance sentence of a user;

FIG. 19 is a view showing an example of a user demand table extracted by a response with a user;

FIG. 20 is a view showing an example of a user demand table extracted by a response with a user;

FIG. 21 is a view showing an example of a response with a user;

FIG. 22 is a view showing an example of a response with a user;

FIG. 23 is a view showing an example of a user demand table extracted by a response with a user;

FIG. 24 is a view showing an example of a response with a user;

FIG. 25 is a view showing an example of a user demand table extracted by a response with a user;

FIG. 26 is a view showing an example of a response with a user;

FIG. 27 is a view showing an example of a response with a user who accesses an agent for the first time;

FIG. 28 is a view showing an example of a response with a user who accesses an agent for the first time;

FIG. 29 is a view showing an example of a response between a plurality of disclosing agents and a user;

FIG. 30 is a view showing an example of a response between an image retrieval disclosing agent and a user;

FIG. 31 is a view showing an example of a response when an information provider participates in an interactive operation;

FIG. 32 is a view showing an example of a response when an information provider participates in an interactive operation;

FIG. 33 is a view showing one modification of the first embodiment;

FIG. 34 is a view showing the list of functions of a disclosing agent;

FIG. 35 is a view showing an example of a disclosing agent;

FIG. 36 is a view showing another example of the disclosing agent;

FIG. 37 is a view showing another modification of the first embodiment;

FIG. 38 is a view showing still another modification of the first embodiment;

FIG. 39 is a view showing an example of a disclosing agent;

FIG. 40 is a view showing an example of a disclosing agent which receives an expression input;

FIG. 41 is a view showing the arrangement of an information disclosing apparatus according to the second embodiment;

FIGS. 42A through 42C show views showing examples of interest information of the second embodiment;

FIG. 43 is a view showing the arrangement of an information disclosing apparatus and a client apparatus according to the third embodiment;

FIG. 44 is a flow chart showing an example of a processing flow of the third embodiment;

FIG. 45 is a flow chart showing another example of the processing flow of the third embodiment;

FIG. 46 is a view showing an example of a response with a user;

FIG. 47 is a view showing an example of a state transient chart of an information disclosing agent;

FIG. 48 is a view showing an example of a state transient chart of a user;

FIG. 49 is a view showing an example of an utterance intention of a user;

FIG. 50 is a view showing an example of a demand from a user;

FIG. 51 is a view showing an example of a demand table (level 1);

FIG. 52 is a view showing an example of a demand achievement plan template;

FIG. 53 is a view showing an example of a demand table (level 2);

FIG. 54 is a view showing an example of a demand table (level 2);

FIG. 55 is a view showing an example of a demand table (level 3);

FIG. 56 is a view showing an example of a demand table (level 2);

FIG. 57 is a view showing an example of a demand table (level 3);

FIG. 58 is a view showing an example of a demand table (level 1);

FIG. 59 is a view showing an example of a response with a user;

FIG. 60 is a view showing an example of a response with a user;

FIG. 61 is a view showing an example of the data structure of a primary response history management table;

FIG. 62 is a view showing an example of a demand synonym table;

FIG. 63 is a view showing an example of a demand table (level 1);

FIG. 64 is a view showing an example of a demand table (level 2);

FIG. 65 is a view showing an example of a response history presentation interface;

FIG. 66 is a view showing an example of a response history presentation interface;

FIG. 67 is a view showing an example of a response history presentation interface;

FIG. 68 is a view showing an example of a response history presentation interface;

FIG. 69 is a view showing an example of the data structure of a primary response history management table;

FIG. 70 is a view showing an example of a response history presentation interface;

FIG. 71 is a view showing an example of a response history presentation interface;

FIG. 72 is a view showing an example of a response history editing interface;

FIG. 73 is a view showing an example of a response history editing interface;

FIG. 74 is a view showing an example of a response history editing interface;

FIG. 75 is a view showing another example of a response history editing interface;

FIG. 76 is a view showing another example of a response history editing interface;

FIG. 77 is a view showing another example of a response history editing interface;

FIG. 78 is a view showing another example of a response history editing interface;

FIG. 79 is a view showing another example of a response history editing interface;

FIG. 80 is a view showing another example of a response history editing interface;

FIG. 81 is a view showing an example of the data structure of a primary response history management table;

FIG. 82 is a flow chart showing an example of a processing flow for editing a history during a response;

FIG. 83 is a view showing an example of a response with a user when a history is edited during the response;

FIG. 84 is a view showing an example of a response with a user when a history is edited during the response;

FIG. 85 is a flow chart showing an example of a processing flow when a history portion to be deleted is automatically determined;

FIG. 86 is a view showing an example of a response with a user when a history portion to be deleted is automatically determined;

FIG. 87 is a flow chart showing an example of a processing flow for permitting to record a history first;

FIG. 88 is a view showing an example of a response with a user when recording of a history is permitted first;

FIG. 89 is a view showing the arrangement of an information disclosing apparatus according to the fourth embodiment;

FIG. 90 is a flow chart showing a processing flow of the fourth embodiment;

FIG. 91 is a view sowing an example of a screen image;

FIG. 92 is a view showing an example of person's categories of users;

FIG. 93 is a view showing an example of disclosure information categories;

FIG. 94 is a view showing an example of a personal relationship model;

FIG. 95 is a view showing an example of a personal relationship model;

FIGS. 96A through 96D show views of examples of personal relationship patterns;

FIG. 97 is a view showing an example of temporal correction of a personal relationship model;

FIGS. 98A through 98C show views of an example of a user model reconstruction interface;

FIG. 99 is a view for explaining a user's intention, emotion analysis items, and an example of a technique;

FIG. 100 is a view for explaining a user's intention, emotion analysis items, and an example of a technique;

FIG. 101 is a view for explaining a user's intention, emotion analysis items, and an example of a technique;

FIG. 102 is a view for explaining a user's intention, emotion analysis items, and an example of a technique;

FIG. 103 is a flow chart showing a flow of user negotiation decision processing using a personal relationship model;

FIGS. 104A and 104B show views fore explaining current status analysis examples of an information disclosure;

FIG. 105 is a view showing an example of negotiation outline presentation;

FIG. 106 is a view fore explaining an example for causing an information disclosure to check if a line is directly connected to a user;

FIG. 107 is a view showing an interactive operation form between a demander, an information disclosing agent, and a provider;

FIG. 108 is a view showing the arrangement of a speech demand reception unit according to the fifth embodiment;

FIG. 109 is a view showing the arrangement of a speech emotion understanding unit in the speech demand reception unit of the fifth embodiment;

FIG. 110 is a view showing an example of the detection result of emotional word speech and emotional non-linguistic speech;

FIG. 111 is a view showing the arrangement of the main part of another speech demand reception unit according to the fifth embodiment;

FIGS. 112A through 112C show views of examples of multi-modal interfaces using speech inputs together with keyboards and mouses;

FIG. 113 is a view showing the arrangement of an information disclosing apparatus according to the sixth embodiment;

FIG. 114 is a view showing an example of the structure of semantic categories stored in a data information storage means;

FIGS. 115A through 115C show views showing examples of the respective semantic categories;

FIG. 116 is a view showing an example of the structure of data form categories stored in the data information storage means;

FIGS. 117A through 117C show views showing examples of the respective data form categories;

FIG. 118 is a view showing an example of the structure of person's categories stored in a user information storage means;

FIGS. 119A through 119C show views of examples of the respective person's categories;

FIGS. 120A and 120B show views of examples of data information;

FIGS. 121A and 121B show views of examples of data information;

FIGS. 122A and 122B show views of examples of user information;

FIGS. 123A and 123B show views of examples of user information;

FIG. 124 is a flow chart showing a flow of information disclosure processing performed by an information disclosing apparatus;

FIG. 125 is a flow chart showing a flow of information disclosure processing performed by the information disclosing apparatus;

FIG. 126 is a flow chart showing a processing flow for correcting data information or user information or forming new data information or new user information;

FIG. 127 is a flow chart showing a processing flow for correcting data information or user information or forming new data information or new user information;

FIG. 128 is a view showing an example of user information of an information demander connected to an information disclosing apparatus;

FIG. 129 is a view showing an example of an interactive operation between an information disclosing apparatus and an information demander;

FIG. 130 is a view showing an example of a method of presenting information of an information disclosing apparatus;

FIGS. 131A and 131B show views of screens for requesting an information provider to participate in an interactive operation between an information disclosing apparatus and an information demander;

FIG. 132 is a view showing an example of an interactive operation between an information disclosing apparatus and an information demander;

FIG. 133 is a view showing an example of an interactive operation between an information disclosing apparatus and an information demander;

FIG. 134 is a view showing an example of an interactive operation between an information disclosing apparatus, an information demander, and an information provider;

FIGS. 135A and 135B show views of display examples of screens for changing attribute values of user information;

FIG. 136 is a view showing an example of an interactive operation between an information disclosing apparatus and an information demander;

FIGS. 137A and 137B show views of examples of results obtained when an information disclosing apparatus performs retrieval in accordance with a demand from an information demander;

FIGS. 138A and 138B show views of examples of results obtained when an information disclosing apparatus performs retrieval in accordance with a demand from an information demander;

FIGS. 139A and 139B show views of examples of results obtained when an information disclosing apparatus performs retrieval in accordance with a demand from an information demander;

FIG. 140 is a view showing an example of a result obtained when an information disclosing apparatus performs retrieval in accordance with a demand from an information demander;

FIG. 141 is a view showing an example of an interactive operation between an information disclosing apparatus and an information demander;

FIG. 142 is a view showing an example of an interactive operation between an information disclosing apparatus and an information demander;

FIGS. 143A and 143B show views of display examples of screens for changing attribute values of user information;

FIGS. 144A and 144B show views of display examples of screens for inputting additional data information;

FIG. 145 is a view showing an information disclosing apparatus and an example of a result of retrieval performed by the information disclosing apparatus;

FIGS. 146A and 146B show views of examples of data information;

FIGS. 147A and 147B show views of display examples of screens for inputting to correct data information;

FIG. 148 is a block diagram of the seventh embodiment according to the present invention;

FIG. 149 is a functional block diagram of an information disclosing apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 150 is a flow chart for explaining an operation sequence of the information disclosing apparatus according to the first embodiment;

FIG. 151 is a view showing an interactive operation count feeling model of the first embodiment;

FIG. 152 is a view showing an interactive operation count feeling model to which feelings of the first embodiment are added;

FIG. 153 is a table showing correction conditions of the first embodiment;

FIG. 154 is a view showing an algorithm for specifying feelings expressed by emotional words of the first embodiment;

FIG. 155 is a view showing an example of an interactive operation of the first embodiment;

FIG. 156 is a view showing a feeling shift model of the first embodiment;

FIG. 157 is a view showing a feeling shift model of the first embodiment;

FIG. 158 is a view showing a feeling shift model of the first embodiment;

FIG. 159 is a view showing a chat transition model of the first embodiment;

FIGS. 160A and 160B show views of a feeling correspondence table of the first embodiment;

FIG. 161 is a view showing an algorithm for expressing a user feeling in a numerical value according to the first embodiment;

FIG. 162 is a view showing a feeling shift model of the first embodiment;

FIG. 163 is a functional block diagram of an information disclosing apparatus according to the second embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 164 is a functional block diagram of the information disclosing apparatus of the second embodiment;

FIG. 165 is a functional block diagram of the information disclosing apparatus of the second embodiment;

FIG. 166 is a functional block diagram of the information disclosing apparatus of the second embodiment;

FIG. 167 is a flow chart for explaining an operation sequence of the information disclosing apparatus of the second embodiment;

FIG. 168 is a view showing an example of a response of the second embodiment;

FIG. 169 is a view showing an interactive operation transition model of the second embodiment;

FIG. 170 is a view showing an execution condition list of the second embodiment;

FIG. 171 is a view showing an interactive operation history storage structure of the second embodiment;

FIG. 172 is a view showing an example of an utterance intention of the second embodiment;

FIG. 173 is a view showing an example of a user demand of the second embodiment;

FIGS. 174A and 174B are views showing a keyword dictionary of the second embodiment;

FIGS. 175A and 175B are views showing the semantic expression of utterances of the second embodiment;

FIG. 176 is a view showing three axes constituting a feeling space of the second embodiment;

FIG. 177 is a view showing a state in which the names of feelings are assigned to the feeling space of the second embodiment;

FIG. 178 is a view showing a feeling region table of the second embodiment;

FIG. 179 is a view showing a state in which pieces of non-linguistic information are assigned to the feeling space of the second embodiment;

FIGS. 180A and 180B are views showing a response plan formation table of the second embodiment;

FIG. 181 is a view showing the format of a response of the second embodiment;

FIG. 182 is a view showing response generation examples of the second embodiment;

FIGS. 183A and 183B are views showing the format of a response of the second embodiment;

FIG. 184 is a view showing the format of a response to which expression information is added according to the second embodiment;

FIG. 185 is a view showing response generation examples to which the attitude and intimacy are added according to the second embodiment;

FIG. 186 is a view showing a response strategy of the second embodiment;

FIG. 187 is a view showing an example of a response sentence example dictionary of the second embodiment;

FIG. 188 is a view showing expression patterns of images of the agent according to the second embodiment;

FIG. 189 is a view showing response generation examples upon recognition of feelings according to the second embodiment;

FIG. 190 is a view showing an example of an application plan according to the second embodiment;

FIGS. 191A and 191B are views showing a response strategy of the second embodiment;

FIG. 192 is a block diagram showing a tenth embodiment according to the present invention; and

FIGS. 193A through 193E are views explaining the fourth embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the basic system configuration including an information disclosing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. Generally, an information disclosing apparatus 1 is connected to a demander terminal 4 through a communication means such as a network. The information disclosing apparatus performs an interactive operation for information disclosure on the basis of a message sent from the demander terminal 4, retrieves information owned by an information provider and stored in a data storage unit 2, and discloses the retrieved information to the demander terminal 4 or rejects information disclosure, as needed.

A retrieval unit for retrieving information in the data storage unit 2 may be arranged in the information disclosing apparatus 1, or a retrieval unit 5 arranged outside the information disclosing apparatus 1 may be used.

Information exchanged through an interactive operation between a demander and the information disclosing apparatus 1, or information disclosed from the information disclosing apparatus to the demander have an arbitrary combination of forms such as a text, speech, an image, and a moving picture.

The first to sixth embodiments of the present invention will be described below.

The first embodiment exemplifies the information disclosing apparatus for looking up information such as a personal relationship between an information provider and the demander to control a range of information to be disclosed, the contents of a response message, and the like.

The second embodiment exemplifies a case in which information associated with an interest of a demander is given to the information disclosing apparatus to easily obtain desired information without repeating cumbersome interactive operations.

The third embodiment exemplifies a case in which a demander can edit (e.g., record, change, and delete) history of interactive operations (including speech, images, and moving pictures in addition to texts) between the demander and the information disclosing apparatus 1.

The fourth embodiment exemplifies a case in which the current status of a demander interacting with the information disclosing apparatus 1 is grasped, and this is reflected in a response (e.g., the contents of a response message and direct line connection between the information provider and the demander).

The fifth embodiment exemplifies a case in which speech, expressions, and the like of the demander are looked up in addition to the contents of texts so as to grasp the status of the demander.

The sixth embodiment exemplifies a case in which deficiencies of management information of a demander and management information for information to be disclosed are identified in accordance with a response history obtained upon a failure of information disclosure, thereby interactively or automatically correcting the deficiencies.

(1) (First Embodiment)

First, the first embodiment will be described below.

FIG. 2 shows the configuration of an information disclosure apparatus according to the first embodiment. This information disclosing apparatus comprises a data storage unit 101, a retrieval unit 102, a demand reception unit 103, a response plan formation unit 104, a response generation unit 105, a response rule storage unit 106, and a response rule management unit 107.

Data such as a text, speech, an image, and a moving picture are stored in the data storage unit 101.

The retrieval unit 102 extracts necessary data from the data stored in the data storage unit 101.

The demand reception unit 103 receives an input through a communication means (e.g., 3 in FIG. 1) such as a network and understands the intention included in the input.

The response rule storage unit 106 stores knowledge or rules required in planning a response in the response plan formation unit 104. These rules are managed by the response rule management unit 107.

The response plan formation unit 104 plans a response to meet the demand received by the demand reception unit 103, using the knowledge or rules stored in the response rule storage unit 106. If the data stored in the data storage unit 101 is required, a retrieval demand is sent to the retrieval unit 102, and the response plan formation unit 104 makes a plan using the knowledge or rules in the response rule storage unit 106 on the basis of the retrieval result.

The response generation unit 105 generates a response as data such as a text, speech, an image or a moving picture, or a combination thereof in accordance with the plan from the response plan formation unit 104.

The operation of this embodiment will be described below. A processing flow of this embodiment is shown in FIG. 3. FIG. 4 and the subsequent drawings show responses of this embodiment.

Among all users, a demander for enjoying information disclosure is called a user, and a person whose discloses information is called an information provider. The information disclosing apparatus is called an information disclosing agent.

First, a user who wants information accesses the information disclosing apparatus which is managed by a user serving as the information provider. For example, the user inputs a command string "pip jim yasuda" within his/her own text input enable window in a window-based interface, as shown in FIG. 4 (S0 in FIG. 4). A process activated by the user using the command pip accesses an information disclosing agent jim of an information provider yasuda and interfaces with the input/output data with the information disclosing agent. The process activated by the user is called a client process.

The information disclosing agent has a state transient model of the information disclosing agent itself and a state transient model of the user in order to grasp the current response status. The state transient model of the information disclosing agent is shown in FIG. 5, and the state transient model of the user is shown in FIG. 6. The states of the information disclosing agent are mainly classified into a "connected state" and a "disconnected state". When the information disclosing agent is connected to the client process of the user, these two models for the user are set in the initial states (C402 in FIG. 5 and C502 in FIG. 6). When a plurality of users simultaneously access the information disclosing agent, sets of agents and user models are held in number corresponding to the number of users.

When the connection is completed, the information disclosing agent shifts to a personal reference check state and checks the personal reference of the user in accordance with the information obtained from the client process (201 in FIG. 3). For example, in a UNIX system, a user ID (uid) is obtained using a system function getuid() in the client process. For example, a user's login name (str) is obtained using the following C-language program:

uid=getuid ();

if (passwdp=getpwuid (uid)) strcpy (str, passwdp.fwdarw.pw*name);

Alternatively, a login name or password may be input through the client process every time the user accesses the information disclosing agent.

The client process notifies the information disclosing agent of these values using, e.g., a socket or a shared memory. The information disclosing agent collates the personal reference using this data.

A history of accesses by each user is recorded, and, for example, a user history information table shown in FIG. 7 is stored in the response rule storage unit 106 in order to change a response to be generated on the basis of the history. The personal reference of the user is compared with the contents of the user history information table to check if this user is a user who has previously accessed the agent. If this user is a new user who has not accessed the agent, a user history information table is newly formed. However, if the user is a user who has previously accessed the agent, the corresponding user history information is called.

The user history information table in the response rule storage unit 106 stores information obtained by the information disclosing agent for users who have previously accessed the agent. For example, user information includes, e.g., a login name, his/her real name, the number of accesses up to the present, the date and time of each access, each access time, an index of pieces of information provided to the previous responses, an amount of provided information, an index of information acquired from the user, an amount of acquired information, a keyword included in a demand, a common job, a computer environment, and the like. The information disclosing agent updates the user history information table every time it is accessed.

All pieces of user information whose users are expected to access the agent are registered in the response rule storage unit 106 so as to include personal relationship information, and a response to be generated can be changed. For example, a user information registration table shown in FIG. 8 is prepared and can be updated any time by the information provider. The contents of the user information registration table are the age, the sex, a field in which a user is interested, a relationship with the information provider, and the like. When the information provider exchanges information with a user by a means except for the information disclosing agent, the storage location of this history is also written. When a user who is currently accessing the agent is registered in the user information registration table, the information disclosing agent calls this information.

The personal relationship includes a social relationship determined by, e.g., the age and a section or department to which the user belongs, and an individual relationship (e.g., an acquaintance, a friend, an undesirable but unseverable friend, and a breach) formed in a one-to-one or one-to-many friendship. The treatment of a user is determined by the personal relationship. If user information shared by enterprises, universities, and the like is available, the social relationship of even a non-registered user can be determined in accordance with the contents of the shared user information. For example, if two persons belong to the same department of a company and have almost the same year of employment, they are determined to have a relationship of "colleagues". However, if two persons belong to the same department of a company and the first person has the year of employment earlier than that of the second person, the first person has a relationship of a "service superior" with respect to the second person. If personal letters are exchanged through, e.g., electronic mails between the user and the provider, an individual relationship of "acquaintances" can be automatically determined to some extent.

To limit the range of users who are allowed to access the agent, the information provider determines the upper limit of access permission levels in the user information registration table (FIG. 8) for users who are already known to the information provider. An access within the limited range can be allowed for a user having a low access permission level. For example, the upper limit of the access permission levels is designated to level 0 representing perfect rejection of access for a user to whom the information provider does not want to notify the presence of an agent.

When an unexpected user accesses the agent, access permission level determination rules shown in, e.g., FIG. 9 are stored in the response rule storage unit 106. An access permission level is defined by user information and his/her status which can be obtained by the agent from the current responses (e.g., a user name and a current use environment), the contents of shared user information, if any, and the user history information table in FIG. 7, and the contents of the user information registration table in FIG. 8.

To designate an access permission for each information to be provided, a disclosure permission range table shown in FIG. 10 can be input by the information provider. The range of users who can enjoy information disclosure is designated in accordance with the access permission level, user registration information, and the contents of the user history information. Access permission information may be added for each data automatically or with a judgment of the information provider in storing the data. In this case, it is determined upon information retrieval whether the information is disclosed.

Upon checking the personal reference, the information disclosing agent checks the current status (step S202 in FIG. 3).

For example, physical status information such as a user's window environment, display performance, a memory transfer capacity, and a data transfer capacity is obtained from the client process. In addition, states in the information disclosing agent and the user state transient model are checked. The information disclosing agent is kept in personal reference check state C403 in FIG. 5, and the user is kept in initial state C502 in FIG. 6.

Upon completion of the status check, the information disclosing agent updates the history information in the response rule storage unit 106 on the basis of the current status (step S203 in FIG. 3). For example, the user status, the contents of information provided up to the present, and the like are stored in the user history information table shown in FIG. 7.

Upon updating the response history, the information disclosing agent forms a response plan on the basis of the current status (step S204 in FIG. 3).

A method of understanding the intention of a user in limiting a task and generating a response is described in detail in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 5-216618. A method of causing an agent to understand the intention of a user, solve a problem, and generate a response is described in detail in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 6-95997.

The response plan formation unit 104 forms a response form limitation table shown in, e.g., FIG. 11 and limits the response forms (modality) such as a text, speech, and an image. For example, in consideration of the limitations in the priority order of information providers, a possibility of comfortable use with the performance of a user terminal or the like, and use status such as time, location, and application, the respective response forms are evaluated. Finally, the response forms are evaluated by a combination of a main response form and an auxiliary response form.

A user sakura currently uses a shared terminal in the working location of the company and has an environment in which a Japanese text and Japanese speech can be exhibited in real time. However, assume that a headphone is not used and the size of a dis