Narrative Group
Research Lead: Andrew Gordon
The Narrative Group at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies pursues basic and applied research to advance technologies for automated storytelling and narrative understanding.
Core technologies include logical abduction reasoning with large-scale formalizations of commonsense knowledge, and the integration of neural, probabilistic, and symbolic reasoning methods.
Applications of these technologies include the automated interpretation of films and interactive simulations, and the automated generation of textual summaries in support of after-action review and human-computer communication.
Current projects:
Narrative Summarization (FY 2020-22)
The Narrative Summarization project aims to develop technologies for automatically generating natural language accounts of battles conducted in virtual training environments, for use as an initial after-action review product.
Interpretation-Guided Autonomous Forces (FY 2022-24)
The Interpretation-Guided Autonomous Forces project aims to develop technologies for automatically selecting the most appropriate behavior for autonomous forces in virtual environments based on interpretations of the scenario context and terrain features, enabling disaggregation of simulated aggregate units, rapid scenario creation, and drag-and-drop AI forces.
Current Members:
Andrew Feng, Research Scientist
Doctoral students:
Melissa Roemmele, Ph.D. May 2018. Thesis: “Neural Networks for Narrative Continuation”
Christopher Wienberg. Ph.D. May 2017. Thesis: “Demographic Bias Correction for Social Media Data”
Reid Swanson. Ph.D. May 2010. Thesis: “Enabling Open Domain Interactive Storytelling Using A Data-Driven Case-Based Approach”
Web applications:
Heider-Simmel Interactive Theater: Make your own movies, write your own stories. Read More
Triangle Charades: It’s charades on the web, but you are a triangle. Read More
Data-driven Interactive Narrative Engine: Free-text interactive fiction. Read More