A Reference of Intentions for Better Medical Communication

Within the medical settings, multiple intelligent agents (including doctors, nurses, patients, and various medical information systems) exist that differ in terms of backgrounds, knowledge bases, and their usage of terminology. In order to support safe and effective medical communication between these multiple intelligent agents, this paper reviews and discusses some ontological studies of verbal communication. In medical settings, breakdowns in verbal communication can sometimes occur between the parties involved. Two important conditions for successful verbal communication are (a) recognizing the speaker´s intention and (b) understanding the contents of their verbal message. To realize better medical communication, it is essential to respond appropriately to both intentions and content. Recently, there has been an emergence of ontological research seeking to systematize knowledge to the aim of effective information exchange on the World Wide Web. We survey recent trends in ontological studies of verbal communication related to intentions and discuss some contributions for safer medical communication. This paper also introduces our intention reference system that is based on cognitive analysis of performative verbs, which convey utterance intentions. This system illustrates the differences in nuance between intentions such as [tanomu (ask for)] and [youkyuu-suru (request)], which could contribute in reducing communication errors.