O'Shea, K. J. , Martin, C. R. and Barr, D. J. (2021) Ordinary memory processes in the design of referring expressions. Journal of Memory and Language, 117, 104186. (doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2020.104186)
Text
225736.pdf - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. 3MB |
Abstract
How do speakers produce referential descriptions that satisfy addressees’ informational needs during real-time conversation? A recent proposal is that ordinary memory processes can serve as a proxy for the consideration of common ground. But this is only possible if speakers encode and access sufficiently detailed memory representations. We tested this proposal by having speakers describe referents in contexts varying in perceptual similarity to previous contexts in the dialogue. Based on the analysis of a total of 4,817 descriptions from 112 speakers over three experiments, we found little evidence that contextual similarity modulated the informational content of speakers’ descriptions, regardless of whether that similarity was based on configurational cues (Exps. 1 and 2), or on the perceptual experience of interacting with a conversational partner (Exp. 3). In contrast, speakers did modulate their descriptions when their beliefs about the addressee changed, even when the perceptual match between encoding and retrieval contexts was identical. This suggests that the episodic representations accessed during message generation may be too impoverished to serve as an effective proxy for common ground.
Item Type: | Articles |
---|---|
Additional Information: | This work was made possible by a Doctoral Training Fellowship to Kieran J. O’Shea from the UK Economic and Social Research Council. |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: | Barr, Dr Dale and O'Shea, Dr Kieran |
Creator Roles: | O'Shea, K.Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Writing – original draft, Writing – review and editing, Visualization, Funding acquisition Barr, D.Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Resources, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review and editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition |
Authors: | O'Shea, K. J., Martin, C. R., and Barr, D. J. |
College/School: | College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Psychology & Neuroscience |
Journal Name: | Journal of Memory and Language |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
ISSN: | 0749-596X |
ISSN (Online): | 1096-0821 |
Published Online: | 23 November 2020 |
Copyright Holders: | Copyright © 2020 Elsevier |
First Published: | First published in Journal of Memory and Language 117:104186 |
Publisher Policy: | Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher |
University Staff: Request a correction | Enlighten Editors: Update this record