Privileged versus shared knowledge about object identity in real-time referential processing

Abstract

A central claim in research on interactive conversation is that listeners use the knowledge assumed to be shared with a conversational partner to guide their understanding of utterances from the earliest moments of processing. In the present study we investigated whether this claim extends to cases where shared vs. private knowledge is discrepant in terms of the identity assigned to a mutually seen object that could be misidentified on the basis of its appearance. Eye movement measures were used to evaluate listeners' ability to integrate a speaker's perspective as they identified the referent for an unfolding expression. The results reconfirmed previous findings showing that listeners can rapidly take into account a speaker's awareness of the existence/presence of a referential object. In contrast, however, listeners showed strong consideration of their private knowledge about the identity of an object during referential processing. Strikingly, this tendency was found even when speaker-produced discourse reinforced the way in which the speaker's understanding of the object's identity differed from that of the listener. Together, the results reveal clear and important differences in the way in which distinct types of perspective-based cues are integrated in real-time communicative interaction.

Mindreading and Psycholinguistic Approaches to Perspective Taking: Establishing Common Ground

“…When anticipation effects are observed in the VPT‐director task, this suggests that inferences about perspective have indeed been made in advance and are biasing attention toward common ground items (Barr, ). However, consistent with evidence from the mindreading literature, recent evidence on variants of the VPT‐director task suggests that the presence of anticipation effects is indeed dependent upon participants’ motivation and cognitive resources (Cane, Ferguson, & Apperly, ; Ferguson et al., ), and it may be observed for simple perspectives (e.g., whether or not the Director has seen an object), but not more complex ones (e.g., whether s/he knows what it really is; Mozuraitis, Chambers, & Daneman, ).…”

Modeling Reference Production as the Probabilistic Combination of Multiple Perspectives

“…Instead, a speaker in this condition should assume that the addressee will infer the wrong function of the VMOs from its appearance (e.g., assume that the Lego‐crayon functions as a Lego), as shown for such objects in Mozuraitis et al. (; Exp. 1).…”

“…What do we expect if speakers adapt to their assumed knowledge of the addressee? To answer this question, we need to consider the Privileged condition from the addressee's perspective, in which the Lego-crayon should be inferred to be a regular Lego (again, as found in Mozuraitis et al, 2015). From this perspective, we assume that the speaker would assess a greater need to distinguish one Lego from another, which would be reflected in a higher rate of modification in the Privileged condition than in the Shared condition.…”

“…Here the goal was to create a situation where (a) the (participant) speaker would know the function of the VMO, and (b) the speaker would assume that the addressee does not know the function of the VMOs. Instead, a speaker in this condition should assume that the addressee will infer the wrong function of the VMOs from its appearance (e.g., assume that the Lego-crayon functions as a Lego), as shown for such objects in Mozuraitis et al (2015;Exp. 1).…”

Cognitive Architecture of Belief Reasoning in Children and Adults: A Primer on the Two‐Systems Account

“…Similar patterns have been found in experiments measuring adults' eye movements as they process a speaker's instruction. For example, in one study , listeners looked more at an object that was visible to both the speaker and themselves, regardless of their own knowledge about the existence of objects in a scene. However, listeners were ineffective at taking the speaker's perspective regarding how an object was seen: Listeners looked more at an object that the speaker could not plausibly have been referring to because of the speaker's ignorance of the true identity of the visually misleading object.…”