PROFESSIONAL SUMMARIZING - NO COGNITIVE SIMULATION WITHOUT OBSERVATION

Professional summarizing includes the cognitive processes of abstracti ng, indexing, and classifying as performed by expert summarizers who p repare records for bibliographic information systems. In order to simu late their skilled performance, a ''grounded'' (or ''naturalistic'') c ognitive model of expert summarization has been developed, using 54 wo rking processes of 6 experts recorded by thinking-aloud protocols. The working processes comprise up to 140 working steps. The model is expl ained in the following using the abstracting step Trueby-2 executed by the expert Marliese. Components of the model are a toolbox of empiric ally founded strategies, principles of process organization, and inter preted working steps where the interaction of cognitive strategies can be investigated. In the computerized simulation, the SimSum (Simulati on of Summarizing) system, cognitive strategies are represented by obj ect-oriented agents grouped around dedicated blackboards. While the ma in scientific goal of the system is to check and improve the cognitive model, the system also serves practical presentation purposes. It wil l be distributed on CD-ROM as part of a textbook and thus help to expl ain the cognitive task of summarizing.