scholarly journals The cognitive demands of remembering a speaker’s perspective and managing common ground size modulate 8- and 10-year-olds’ perspective-taking abilities

2018 ◽  
Vol 174 ◽  
pp. 130-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Zhao ◽  
J. Jessica Wang ◽  
Ian A. Apperly
Keyword(s):  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Cognitive Demands

Showing, Expressing, and Figuratively Meaning

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitchell Green
Keyword(s):  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Psychological State ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Speaker Meaning

We first correct some errors in Lepore and Stone’s discussion of speaker meaning and its relation to linguistic meaning. With a proper understanding of those notions and their relation, we may then motivate a liberalization of speaker meaning that includes overtly showing one’s psychological state. I then distinguish this notion from that of expression, which, although communicative, is less cognitively demanding than speaker meaning since it need not be overt. This perspective in turn enables us to address Lepore and Stone’s broadly Davidsonian view of figurative language, which rightly emphasizes the role of imagination and perspective-taking associated with such language, but mistakenly suggests it is sui generis relative to other types of pragmatic process, and beyond the realm of communication. Figurative utterances may influence conversational common ground, and may be assessed for their aptness; they also have a characteristically expressive role that a Davidsonian view lacks the resources to explain.

Bilingual referential choice in cognitively demanding situations

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-95
Author(s):  
Carla Contemori ◽  
Iva Ivanova
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Cognitive Demand ◽  
Automatic Processing ◽  
Audience Design ◽  
Cognitive Demands ◽  
Interface Hypothesis ◽  
Referential Choice

AbstractUnder the Interface Hypothesis, bilinguals’ non-nativelike referential choices may be influenced by the increased cognitive demands and less automatic processing of bilingual production. We test this hypothesis by comparing pronoun production in the L2 of nonbalanced Spanish–English bilinguals to that of English monolinguals in two cognitively challenging contexts. In Experiment 1, both monolinguals and bilinguals produced more explicit references when part of the information was unavailable to their addressee (privileged ground) than when all information was shared (common ground), evidencing audience design. In Experiment 2, verbal load led to more unspecified references than visual load and no load (an effect statistically indistinguishable between groups but numerically driven by the monolingual group). While bilinguals produced overall more pronouns than monolinguals in both experiments, there was no indication that bilinguals’ referential choice was disproportionally affected by increased cognitive demand, contrary to the predictions of the Interface Hypothesis.

Evidence of Perspective-Taking Constraints in Children's On-Line Reference Resolution

2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 329-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aparna S. Nadig ◽  
Julie C. Sedivy
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Reference Resolution ◽  
Mutual Knowledge ◽  
Initial Stage ◽  
On Line ◽  
Early Effects

Young children's communication has often been characterized as egocentric. Some researchers claim that the processing of language involves an initial stage that relies on egocentric heuristics, even in adults. Such an account, combined with general developmental difficulties with late-stage processes, could provide an explanation for much of children's egocentric communication. However, the experimental data reported in this article do not support such an account: In an elicited-production task, 5- to 6-year-old children were found to be sensitive to their partner's perspective. Moreover, in an on-line comprehension task, they showed sensitivity to common-ground information from the initial stages of language processing. We propose that mutual knowledge is not distinct from other knowledge relevant for language processing, and exerts early effects on processing in proportion to its salience and reliability.

scholarly journals How do you know that? Automatic belief inferences in passing conversation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Rubio-Fernandez ◽  
Francis Mollica ◽  
Michelle Oraa Ali ◽  
Edward Gibson
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Visual Perspective ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Controlled Processes ◽  
Belief Reasoning

There is an ongoing debate, both in philosophy and psychology, as to whether people are able to automatically infer what others may know, or whether they can only derive belief inferences by deploying cognitive resources. Evidence from laboratory tasks, often involving false beliefs or visual-perspective taking, has suggested that belief inferences are cognitively costly, controlled processes. Here we suggest that in everyday conversation, belief reasoning is pervasive and therefore potentially automatic in some cases. To test this hypothesis, we conducted two pre-registered self-paced reading experiments (N1 = 91, N2 = 89). The results of these experiments showed that participants slowed down when a stranger commented ‘That greasy food is bad for your ulcer’ relative to conditions where a stranger commented on their own ulcer or a friend made either comment – none of which violated participants’ common- ground expectations. We conclude that Theory of Mind models need to account for belief reasoning in conversation as it is at the center of everyday social interaction.

Cooperative Communications in Dynamic Fault Management

1994 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 225-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leila J. Johannesen ◽  
Richard I. Cook ◽  
David D. Woods
Keyword(s):  
Cooperative Communications ◽  
System Approach ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Intelligent System ◽  
Fault Management ◽  
Cooperative Interaction ◽  
Cognitive Demands ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Artificial Intelligence Systems ◽  
Common Frame Of Reference

The motivation for this research is to further theory on the development of artificial intelligence systems that function as “team players” in dynamic fault management applications. One challenge is effectively supporting the practitioner in understanding the assessments and actions of the intelligent system. The typical expert system approach to explanations is not well suited to the cognitive demands of dynamic fault management. In order to gain insight into effective cooperative interaction in dynamic fault management, we have undertaken a field of study of practitioners in one such domain, anesthesiology. We analyze the findings using the theoretical framework of a common ground and common frame of reference.

Shared Reality: Experiencing Commonality with others' Inner States about the World

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 496-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Echterhoff ◽  
E. Tory Higgins ◽  
John M. Levine
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Interpersonal Communication ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Distributed Knowledge ◽  
Shared Reality ◽  
Relevant Evidence ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Sharing ◽  
The Creation

Humans have a fundamental need to experience a shared reality with others. We present a new conceptualization of shared reality based on four conditions. We posit (a) that shared reality involves a (subjectively perceived) commonality of individuals' inner states (not just observable behaviors); (b) that shared reality is about some target referent; (c) that for a shared reality to occur, the commonality of inner states must be appropriately motivated; and (d) that shared reality involves the experience of a successful connection to other people's inner states. In reviewing relevant evidence, we emphasize research on the saying-is-believing effect, which illustrates the creation of shared reality in interpersonal communication. We discuss why shared reality provides a better explanation of the findings from saying-is-believing studies than do other formulations. Finally, we examine relations between our conceptualization of shared reality and related constructs (including empathy, perspective taking, theory of mind, common ground, embodied synchrony, and socially distributed knowledge) and indicate how our approach may promote a comprehensive and differentiated understanding of social-sharing phenomena.

scholarly journals Two kinds of perspective taking in narrative texts

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Hinterwimmer
Keyword(s):  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Doxastic State ◽  
Free Indirect Discourse ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Indirect Discourse ◽  
Finite Matrix ◽  
The Common

In this paper, I argue for the existence of two distinct kinds of protagonists’ perspective taking in narrative texts. The first, Free Indirect Discourse, represents conscious thoughts or utterances of protagonists and involves context shifting: All context-sensitive expressions with the exception of pronouns and tenses are interpreted with respect to the fictional context of some salient protagonist (Schlenker 2004; Sharvit 2008; Eckardt 2014, Maier 2015). The second, which I dub viewpoint shifting, does not necessarily represent conscious thoughts or utterances and it does not involve context shifting. Rather, a situation is described as it is perceived by a salient protagonist or in a way that reflects the doxastic state of such a protagonist, not with respect to the Common Ground (CG) of narrator and reader. While FID is only available at the root level, i.e. at the speech act level, viewpoint shifting is available at the level of finite matrix clauses.

Assertion and Mindreading

2018 ◽  
pp. 389-413
Author(s):  
William S. Horton
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Psychological Perspective ◽  
Cognitive Demands ◽  
Psychological Construct ◽  
Speaker Meaning

Pragmatic accounts of assertion commonly assume that language users engage in some form of mindreading. For example, Stalnaker proposed that the critical context for any assertion is the set of pragmatic presuppositions that can be taken as shared between speaker and addressee—that is, their common ground. From a cognitive psychological perspective, though, the processing and representational requirements of considering common ground are substantial. This chapter considers several cognitively oriented descriptions of mindreading in communication, contrasting the metarepresentational requirements of speaker meaning with the more general psychological construct of false belief in theory of mind. Ultimately, the cognitive demands of real-time conversation may circumscribe the ability of language users to engage in sophisticated forms of mindreading during the communication of assertion.

Why do people believe in a zero-sum economy?

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel G. B. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Evolutionary Model ◽  
Everyday Experience ◽  
Coalitional Psychology ◽  
The Face ◽  
Zero Sum

AbstractZero-sum thinking and aversion to trade pervade our society, yet fly in the face of everyday experience and the consensus of economists. Boyer & Petersen's (B&P's) evolutionary model invokes coalitional psychology to explain these puzzling intuitions. I raise several empirical challenges to this explanation, proposing two alternative mechanisms – intuitive mercantilism (assigning value to money rather than goods) and errors in perspective-taking.

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