Yoon Si On, Brown-Schmidt Sarah
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2014 Jul;40(4):919-37. doi: 10.1037/a0036161. Epub 2014 Apr 7.
During conversation, partners develop representations of jointly known information--the common ground--and use this knowledge to guide subsequent linguistic exchanges. Extensive research on 2-party conversation has offered key insights into this process, in particular, its partner-specificity: Common ground that is shared with 1 partner is not always assumed to be shared with other partners. Conversation often involves multiple pairs of individuals who differ in common ground. Yet, little is known about common ground processes in multi-party conversation. Here, we take a 1st step toward understanding this problem by examining situations in which simple dyadic representations of common ground might cause difficulty--situations in which dialogue partners develop shared labels (entrained terms), and then a 3rd (naïve) party joins the conversation. Experiment 1 examined unscripted, task-based conversation in which 2 partners entrained on terms. At test, speakers referenced game-pieces in a dialogue with their partner, or in a 3-party conversation including a new, naïve listener. Speakers were sensitive to the 3rd party, using longer, disfluent expressions when additionally addressing the new partner. By contrast, analysis of listener eye-fixations did not suggest sensitivity. Experiment 2 provided a stronger test of sensitivity and revealed that listeners do cancel expectations for terms that had been entrained before when a 3rd, naïve party joins the conversation. These findings shed light on the mechanisms underlying common ground, showing that rather than a unitary construct, common ground is flexibly adapted to the needs of a naïve 3rd party.
在对话过程中，对话双方会形成关于共同知晓信息的表征——共同基础，并利用这些知识来指导后续的语言交流。对双方对话的广泛研究为这一过程提供了关键见解，尤其是其特定于伙伴的特性：与一方伙伴共享的共同基础并不总是被假定为与其他伙伴共享。对话通常涉及多对在共同基础方面存在差异的个体。然而，对于多方对话中的共同基础过程却知之甚少。在此，我们通过研究一些情况来迈出理解这个问题的第一步，在这些情况中，简单的二元共同基础表征可能会导致困难——即对话伙伴形成共享标签（约定俗成的术语），然后第三方（不知情的一方）加入对话的情况。实验1考察了基于任务的无脚本对话，其中两名伙伴约定了术语。在测试中，说话者在与他们的伙伴对话时，或者在包括一名新的不知情听众的三方对话中提及游戏棋子。说话者对第三方很敏感，在额外与新伙伴交谈时会使用更长、更不流畅的表达。相比之下，对听众眼动注视的分析并未显示出敏感性。实验2对敏感性进行了更强有力的测试，结果表明，当第三方不知情的一方加入对话时，听众确实会取消对之前约定术语的预期。这些发现揭示了共同基础背后的机制，表明共同基础并非一个统一的结构，而是会灵活地适应不知情第三方的需求。
