Explanation and Qualitative Reasoning

Qualitative Reasoning is often seen as a powerful basis for generating explanations, because the behaviour of interest is explicitly modelled in terms of relevant components, processes, causality relations, quantity spaces, assumptions, states and transitions, while neglecting unnecessary details like quantitative values. However, the link between qualitative reasoning and explanation is often seen as a direct one-to-one mapping, whereas studies of human explanation indicate that this is a simplification. Explanation is an interactive process in which the context plays an important role. This position paper takes a closer look at the relation between qualitative reasoning, explanation generation and contextual factors such as the tasks and goals of the user, and the dialogue history.