A comparison of formal knowledge representationschemes as communication tools: predicate logic vs semantic network

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to test the effectiveness of two popular knowledge representation schemes as communication vehicles between the human expert and the knowledge engineer. Validation by the human expert of the knowledge encapsulated depends upon how well the expert understands and interprets a representation scheme. A between-group experiment was conducted. Each group received two treatments of the same representation technique, with the second treatment slightly more complex that the first. All the scores for the Semantic Network representations were higher than that obtained for the Predicate Logic representations; and the Semantic Network were clearly better for comprehension and conceptualization tasks. The results demonstrate some of the weaknesses of Predicate Logic and some of the strenths of Semantic Networks as communication tools during the validation process.