The computational model of question answering proposed by a computer program, QUALM, is a theory of conceptual information processing based on models of human memory organization. It has been developed from the perspective of natural language processing in conjunction with story understanding systems. The processes in QUALM are divided into four phases: (1) conceptual categorization; (2) inferential analysis; (3) content specification; and (4) retrieval heuristics. QUALM provides a concrete criterion for judging the strengths and weaknesses of story representations. As a theoretical model, QUALM is intended to describe general question answering, where question answering is viewed as a verbal communication device between people. (Author/KP)