Visual world studies of conversational perspective taking

Language use in conversation is fundamentally incremental, and is guided by the representations that interlocutors maintain of each other’s knowledge and beliefs. While there is a consensus that interlocutors represent the perspective of others, three candidate models, a Perspective-Adjustment model, an Anticipation-Integration model, and a Constraint-Based model, make conflicting predictions about the role of perspective information during on-line language processing. Here we review psycholinguistic evidence for incrementality in language processing, and the recent methodological advance that has fostered its investigation—the use of eye-tracking in the visual world paradigm. We present visual world studies of perspective-taking, and evaluate each model's account of the data. We argue for a Constraint-Based view in which perspective is one of multiple probabilistic constraints that guide language processing decisions. Addressees combine knowledge of a speaker’s perspective with rich information from the discourse context to arrive at an interpretation of what was said. Understanding how these sources of information combine to influence interpretation requires careful consideration of how perspective representations were established, and how they are relevant to the communicative context.

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Why do people believe in a zero-sum economy?

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x18000389 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 41 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

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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Activation and Persistence of Implicit Causality Information in Spoken Language Comprehension

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000002 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 57 (1) ◽

pp. 5-16 ◽

Cited By ~ 46

Author(s):

Pirita Pyykkönen ◽

Juhani Järvikivi

Keyword(s):

Eye Tracking ◽

Language Comprehension ◽

Spoken Language ◽

Visual World ◽

Implicit Causality ◽

Causality Information ◽

Spoken Language Comprehension

A visual world eye-tracking study investigated the activation and persistence of implicit causality information in spoken language comprehension. We showed that people infer the implicit causality of verbs as soon as they encounter such verbs in discourse, as is predicted by proponents of the immediate focusing account ( Greene & McKoon, 1995 ; Koornneef & Van Berkum, 2006 ; Van Berkum, Koornneef, Otten, & Nieuwland, 2007 ). Interestingly, we observed activation of implicit causality information even before people encountered the causal conjunction. However, while implicit causality information was persistent as the discourse unfolded, it did not have a privileged role as a focusing cue immediately at the ambiguous pronoun when people were resolving its antecedent. Instead, our study indicated that implicit causality does not affect all referents to the same extent, rather it interacts with other cues in the discourse, especially when one of the referents is already prominently in focus.

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Does It Matter How I Say It?

Journal of Personnel Psychology ◽

10.1027/1866-5888/a000125 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 104-108 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Dan S. Chiaburu ◽

Ann Chunyan Peng ◽

Linn Van Dyne

Keyword(s):

Perspective Taking ◽

Joint Effect ◽

Overall Performance ◽

Low Levels

We conducted an experiment to examine the effect of how subordinates present ideas (constructive vs. complaining form) on supervisor (receiver) responses (perceptions of subordinate intrusiveness and of overall performance). We demonstrated a joint effect of subordinate idea presentation (manipulated) and supervisor dogmatism (measured) such that supervisors with high levels of dogmatism rated subordinates who presented voice constructively as more intrusive and lower in performance than those with low dogmatism. Supervisor perspective taking mediated these relationships. Our findings highlight the importance of presenting ideas in a constructive form to receivers with low levels of dogmatism.

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