Patent ID: 6853962

Claim:
Training apparatus for training a user to engage in transactions with another person whom the apparatus is arranged to simulate, the apparatus comprising: an output device for outputting of messages to a user; an input for receiving input from the user; a lexical store containing data relating to individual words of said input; a rule store containing rules specifying grammatically allowable relationships between words of said input; a transaction store containing data relating to allowable transactions between said user and said person, said data defining, for said output messages, types of allowable inputs from said user; an output message buffer for storing data representative of the most recent message output by the output device and at least a preceding one of said messages output from the output device; a processor having at least read access to the lexical store and the rule store, said processor being arranged to process the input by comparing the input with the words contained in said lexical store and with the relationships specified by the rules contained in said rule store, in order to recognize the occurrence in the input of words contained in said lexical store and in the relationships specified by the rules contained in said rule store, and, in dependence upon said recognition, to generate output indicating when correct input has been recognized; and wherein said processor is further responsive to the data contained in the message buffer and the transaction store to; (a) determine whether said input is an allowable response to a most recent one of the output messages represented by data stored in the output message buffer; and (b) if said input is not determined to be an allowable response to a most recent one of the messages, determine whether said input is an allowable response to a preceding message represented by data stored in the output message buffer; an output device for making the output available to the user so that said user can be trained to engage in transactions with another person.