Reasoning visualization in expert systems---the applicability of algorithm animation techniques

Abstract

Visualization of the reasoning process of an expert system can be useful in many situations. Unfortunately, no current expert system development environment presents us with this visualization. The problem is three-fold. First, the information presented typically contains too much detail. It is presented at the wrong conceptual level. Second, the information desired is not always available. Third, even when the desired information is presented at a reasonable conceptual level, there may be too much of it.This paper presents the results of research into providing a means for users to flexibly and easily create visualizations of the reasoning processes of forward-chaining rule-based expert systems using algorithm animation techniques. Levels of reasoning are described in order to identify the information necessary from the expert system development environment for these visualizations.A dual process visualization environment is presented consisting of 1) a version of CLIPS modified for the identified information access requirements, and 2) VISOR, an algorithm animation based system for creating visualizations of arbitrary complexity which can be triggered by "interesting event" messages from the running expert system application. This is followed by examples from several visualizations performed during the scope of this work.

Using Visualization to Build Transparency in a Healthcare Blockchain Application

“…Visualizations has also been used to debug software and help with understanding the reasoning processes of forward-chaining rule-based expert systems [60], as well as when individuals are engaged in global software development to ensure that workflows that are generating data to influence a project can be monitored [61]. Today, when data are manipulated by multiple entities including robots, designing human-like and visualization-based transparency is critical to map the processes used to manipulate data so it can match an individual's mental models [62] and reduce the cognitive burden by helping with external anchoring, information foraging, and cognitive offloading [63].…”

Algorithmic Animation in Education—Review of Academic Experience

“…Some universities have invested considerable resources in electronic classrooms where such animations are used (Bazik, Tamassia, Reiss, & van Dam, 1998). Animations have also been used in Artificial Intelligence for state space search (Ciesielski & McDonald, 2001;Stern & Sterling, 1997), genetic algorithms (Jackson & Fovargue, 1997), expert systems reasoning (Selig, & Johannes, 1990), visualizing knowledge based systems (Domingue, 1998), and even for understanding neural networks (Jackson & Morton, 1996). Recently, algorithmic animations in Java have gained prominence in the Web.…”