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Abstract:
referential domains in real time comprehension during
interactive problem-solving
Although the generation and interpretation of
definite reference has played a central theoretical and empirical
role in sentence processing research, little is known about how
addressees interpret referential expressions in natural
interactive conversation. To examine this process we
monitored eye movements as pairs of participants, separated by a
curtain, worked together to arrange blocks in matching
configurations and confirm those configurations. We varied
the color, size, and orientation of blocks to encourage use of
complex NPs, and grounding constructions. Boards were
partially covered, creating 5 distinct sub-areas.
Initially, sub-areas were dotted with stickers that represented
blocks. The task was to replace each sticker with a
matching block. While subjects' boards were identical with
respect to the sub-areas, subjects' stickers differed: Every
place that one subject had a sticker, the other subject had an
empty spot, and vice-versa. Pairs were instructed to tell
each other where to put blocks so that in the end, their boards
would match. The entire study lasted approximately 2.5
hours; one person was eye-tracked, and the other had the primary
microphone.
Participants typically took turns instructing one
another about block placement, with conversation focusing
primarily on the task. All of the pairs who have
participated thus far showed a similar approach to the task:
pairs tended to work on one sub-area at a time, and only move to
a new sub-area when all the blocks in the previous sub-area were
placed. Conversational grounding devices (and other
pragmatic constraints) strongly restricted reference resolution
to the current sub-area of conversation. Of the 155
definite references analyzed, only 48% of the utterances were
specific enough to disambiguate the target referent with respect
to the other blocks in the relevant sub-area. For this
subset of utterances, eye movements were closely time-locked to
the point of disambiguation (POD) in the utterance. The
proportion of looks to the target was significantly higher 300 ms
after the POD than the 300ms before, replicating previous results
with scripted instructions [1]. Most remarkably, ambiguous
utterances elicited significantly more looks to the target than
unambiguous utterances. Moreover, fixations were primarily
restricted to the referent shortly after onset of the definite
reference. These results suggest that (1) speakers
systematically use less specific utterances when the referential
domain has been pragmatically constrained; (2) the attentional
states of speakers and addresses become closely tuned; and (3)
utterances are interpreted with respect to referential domains
circumscribed by pragmatic constraints.
Reference
[1] Eberhard, K.M., Spivey-Knowlton, M.J., Sedivy,
J.C. & Tanenhaus, M.K. (l995). Eye-movements as a
window into spoken language comprehension in natural
contexts. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 24,
409-436.
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