METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR INTEGRATION OF VISUAL AND NATURAL LANGUAGE QUERY INTERFACES FOR CONTEXT-SENSITIVE DATA EXPLORATION

Methods and apparatus are provided for integrating a visual query interface and a natural language interface. The disclosed interface embeds a first of the visual query interface and the natural language interface into a second of the visual query interface and the natural language interface. The disclosed interface can also receives one or more natural language expressions in the natural language interface and one or more visual query expressions in the visual query interface in a same search turn. The disclosed interface can also receive a first query comprised of a first of a natural language query and a visual query; process the first query; and creates a substantially equivalent query to the first query in a second of the natural language query and the visual query The disclosed interface can process a natural language query to determine if a portion of the natural language query is not understood; and convert at least a portion of the natural language query to a visual query.