Resolving Open-textured Rules with Templated Interpretive Arguments

TL;DR

This paper empirically investigates how interpretive argument templates influence human reasoning over open-textured rules, providing insights for developing interpretation-capable AI systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel empirical study using a constrained argumentation framework to analyze interpretive reasoning, highlighting the impact of argument templates on interpretation processes.

Findings

Participants' reasoning patterns are significantly shaped by argument templates.

Template-constrained reasoning leads to more consistent interpretations.

Results inform the design of AI systems capable of interpretive argumentation.

Abstract

Open-textured terms in written rules are typically settled through interpretive argumentation. Ongoing work has attempted to catalogue the schemes used in such interpretive argumentation. But how can the use of these schemes affect the way in which people actually use and reason over the proper interpretations of open-textured terms? Using the interpretive argument-eliciting game Aporia as our framework, we carried out an empirical study to answer this question. Differing from previous work, we did not allow participants to argue for interpretations arbitrarily, but to only use arguments that fit with a given set of interpretive argument templates. Finally, we analyze the results captured by this new dataset, specifically focusing on practical implications for the development of interpretation-capable artificial reasoners.