Influence of perspective and goals on reference production in conversation

Si On Yoon; Sungryong Koh; Sarah Brown-Schmidt

doi:10.3758/s13423-012-0262-6

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Influence of perspective and goals on reference production in conversation

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Influence of perspective and goals on reference production in conversation

Si On Yoon, Sungryong Koh and Sarah Brown-Schmidt

Psychonomic bulletin & review, Vol.19(4), pp.699-707

08/01/2012

DOI: 10.3758/s13423-012-0262-6

PMID: 22572985

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Abstract

We examined the extent to which speakers take into consideration the addressee's perspective in language production. Previous research on this process had revealed clear deficits (Horton & Keysar, Cognition 59:91-117, 1996; Wardlow Lane & Ferreira, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 34:1466-1481, 2008). Here, we evaluated a new hypothesis-that the relevance of the addressee's perspective depends on the speaker's goals. In two experiments, Korean speakers described a target object in situations in which the perspective status of a competitor object (e.g., a large plate when describing a smaller plate) was manipulated. In Experiment 1, we examined whether speakers would use scalar-modified expressions even when the competitor was hidden from the addressee. The results demonstrated that information from both the speaker's and the addressee's perspectives influenced production. In Experiment 2, we examined whether utterance goals modulate this process. The results indicated that when a speaker makes a request, the addressee's perspective has a stronger influence than it does when the speaker informs the addressee. These results suggest that privileged knowledge does shape language use, but crucially, that the degree to which the addressee's perspective is considered is shaped by the relevance of the addressee's perspective to the utterance goals.

Psychology

Psychology, Experimental

Psychology, Mathematical

Social Sciences

Details

Title: Subtitle: Influence of perspective and goals on reference production in conversation
Creators: Si On Yoon - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Sungryong Koh - Seoul National University
Sarah Brown-Schmidt - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Psychonomic bulletin & review, Vol.19(4), pp.699-707
Publisher: SPRINGER
DOI: 10.3758/s13423-012-0262-6
PMID: 22572985
ISSN: 1069-9384
eISSN: 1531-5320
Number of pages: 9
Language: English
Date published: 08/01/2012
Academic Unit: Communication Sciences and Disorders
Record Identifier: 9984258740402771

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