Department of Educational Studies in Psychology, Research Methodology, and Counseling, University of Alabama.
Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Kent State University.
Cogn Sci. 2020 Oct;44(10):e12912. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12912.
We investigated how two cues to contrast-beat gesture and contrastive pitch accenting-affect comprehenders' cognitive load during processing of spoken referring expressions. In two visual-world experiments, we orthogonally manipulated the presence of these cues and their felicity, or fit, with the local (sentence-level) referential context in critical referring expressions while comprehenders' task-evoked pupillary responses (TEPRs) were examined. In Experiment 1, beat gesture and contrastive accenting always matched the referential context of filler referring expressions and were therefore relatively felicitous on the global (experiment) level, whereas in Experiment 2, beat gesture and contrastive accenting never fit the referential context of filler referring expressions and were therefore infelicitous on the global level. The results revealed that both beat gesture and contrastive accenting increased comprehenders' cognitive load. For beat gesture, this increase in cognitive load was driven by both local and global infelicity. For contrastive accenting, this increase in cognitive load was unaffected when cues were globally felicitous but exacerbated when cues were globally infelicitous. Together, these results suggest that comprehenders' cognitive resources are taxed by processing infelicitous use of beat gesture and contrastive accenting to convey contrast on both the local and global levels.
我们研究了两种提示（对比性的打拍子手势和对比性的重音）如何影响听话者在处理口语指称表达时的认知负荷。在两个视觉世界实验中，我们在关键指称表达中，对这些提示的存在及其与局部（句子层面）指称语境的适合度进行了正交操控，同时观察了听话者的任务诱发瞳孔反应（TEPR）。在实验 1 中，打拍子手势和对比性重音总是与填充物指称表达的指称语境相匹配，因此在全局（实验）层面上相对合适，而在实验 2 中，打拍子手势和对比性重音从不与填充物指称表达的指称语境相匹配，因此在全局层面上不合适。结果表明，打拍子手势和对比性重音都增加了听话者的认知负荷。对于打拍子手势，这种认知负荷的增加既受到局部也受到全局不合适性的驱动。对于对比性重音，当提示在全局上合适时，这种认知负荷的增加不受影响，但当提示在全局上不合适时，这种认知负荷的增加则加剧。总之，这些结果表明，听话者的认知资源受到处理不恰当的打拍子手势和对比性重音的影响，这些不恰当的用法在局部和全局层面上都传达了对比信息。
