Information processing apparatus and method, recording medium, and program

A method of processing information for retrieving contents from among a plurality of retrievable contents (content A1 . . . content An), the method comprising:

• entering a logic operation expression defined by a plurality of retrieval keys designating a plurality of key contents (content KB1 . . . content KBm), respectively, and logic operators defining logic relationships there between, said entering including entering weights for the respective feature quantities of the contents;
• calculating, for each one of the plurality of key contents, a similarity distance (D) between the plurality of key contents designated by the retrieval keys of said logic operation expression and the plurality of retrievable contents using a plurality of types of feature quantities of at least one of the retrieval contents and the key contents, each type of feature quantity of the retrievable contents being assigned a respective value from within a range of values (VA1 . . . VAn) that indicates a degree of the type of feature quantity occurring in the retrievable contents (content A1 . . . content An) and each type of feature quantity of the key contents being assigned a respective value from within a range of values (VKB1 . . . VKBm) that indicates a degree of the type of feature quantity occurring in the key contents (content KB1 . . . content KBm), such that D=√{(VA1−VKB1)2+(VA2−VKB2)2+ . . . (VAn−VKBm)2}, said calculating including calculating similarity D between the key contents and the retrievable contents using a plurality of feature quantities of the contents which are weighted by said weights with respect to all said key contents;
• calculating a combined score (S) for the respective retrievable contents by performing logic operations using said similarity D between the key contents and the retrievable contents corresponding to the retrieval keys, such that S=1/(D+α), where α is a predetermined constant;
• and
• presenting contents from among said retrievable contents, based on said combined score calculated in said combined score calculating step, the presenting including displaying each of the plurality of combined scores with respect to at least one of the plurality of key contents.

A computer readable, tangible storage medium encoded with a computer readable program configured to cause an information processing apparatus to execute a method for retrieving contents from among a plurality of retrievable contents (content A1 . . . content An), comprising:

• entering a logic operation expression defined by a plurality of retrieval keys designating a plurality of key contents (content KB1 . . . content KBm), respectively, and logic operators defining logic relationships there between, said entering including entering weights for the respective feature quantities of the contents;
• calculating, for each one of the plurality of key contents, a similarity distance (D) between the plurality of key contents designated by the retrieval keys of said logic operation expression and the plurality of retrievable contents using a plurality of types of feature quantities of at least one of the retrieval contents and the key contents, each type of feature quantity of the retrievable contents being assigned a respective value from within a range of values (VA1 . . . VAn) that indicates a degree of the type of feature quantity occurring in the retrievable contents (content A1 . . . content An) and each type of feature quantity of the key contents being assigned a respective value from within a range of values (VKB1 . . . VKBm) that indicates a degree of the type of feature quantity occurring in the key contents (content KB1 . . . content KBm), such that D=√{(VA1−VKB1)2+(VA2−VKB2)2+ . . . (VAn−VKBm)2}, said calculating including calculating similarity D between the key contents and the retrievable contents using a plurality of feature quantities of the contents which are weighted by said weights with respect to all said key contents;
• calculating a combined score (S) for the respective retrievable contents by performing logic operations using said similarity D between the key contents and the retrievable contents corresponding to the retrieval keys, such that S=1/(D+α), where α is a predetermined constant;
• and
• presenting contents from among said retrievable contents, based on said combined score calculated in said combined score calculating step, the presenting including displaying each of the plurality of combined scores with respect to at least one of the plurality of key contents.