A rule-based support system for dissonance discovery and control applied to car driving

This paper is based on the concept of dissonance, that is, gaps or conflicts existing in a specific knowledge base or among different knowledge bases. It presents a rule-based system that assists human operators in dissonance discovery and control by taking into account two kinds of dissonance, i.e., affordance to study conflicts of use, and inconsistencies to study conflicts of intention and action, through the analysis of cognitive behavior implemented in knowledge bases. This system elaborates the knowledge base composed of rules, and analyzes the knowledge content to discover new knowledge by creating additional rules, or to identify inconsistencies when conflicts between rules occur. The affordance discovery control process uses a deductive and an inductive reasoning algorithm of which the aim is to establish new rules using existing ones. The inconsistency discovery control process applies an abductive reasoning algorithm in order to determine contradictory rules when existing rules may result in opposite intentions being accomplished. Two groups of inconsistencies are addressed: interferences involving several decision makers, and contradictions involving the same decision maker. A knowledge acquisition control process facilitates the creation of the initial rules that contain parameters such as intentions relating to the goals to be achieved, actions to be performed to achieve these intentions, objects used to carry out these actions and the decision makers who execute these actions using the corresponding objects. A feasibility study taking into account five rule bases relating to the manual use of an Automated Speed Control System (ASCS), the automated control of the car speed by the ASCS, the manual control of aquaplaning, the manual control of the car speed, and the manual control of car fuel consumption is proposed to validate the rule-based support system. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.