Natural Language Access To Medical Text

Abstract

This paper describes research on the development of a methodology for representing the information in texts and of procedures for relating the linguistic structure of a request to the corresponding representations. The work is being done in the context of a prototype system that will allow physicians and other health professionals to access information in a computerized textbook of hepatitis through natural language dialogues. The interpretation of natural language queries is derived from DIAMOND/DIAGRAM, a linguistically motivated, domain-independent natural language interface developed at SRI. A text access component is being developed that uses representations of the propositional content of text passages and of the hierarchical structure of the text as a whole to retrieve relevant information.