PURPOSE: To fetch data from a computer by limiting the number of display items for icon to the minimum while grasping a retrieval path for data base certainly.

CONSTITUTION: On the screen of display unit 3, are displayed a plurality of the first designated areas M representing a type of law like or universal upper level concept and a plurality of the second designated areas I representing a type of the attribute of a fact item that predicatively specifies the above concept, a curcor K is moved to one of the first designated areas M to select a type of the upper level concept, and next moved to one of the second designated areas I to select a type of attribute, and the display conditions of these selected the first designated area M and the second designated area I are inversed, the selected upper level concept and selected attribute are read out from data base 6, and displayed on the screen.