Linguistics & English Language, University of Edinburgh, UK.
Language Science, University of California Irvine, USA.
Cognition. 2021 Apr;209:104491. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104491. Epub 2021 Feb 2.
Language is used as a channel by which speakers convey, among other things, newsworthy and informative messages, i.e., content that is otherwise unpredictable to the comprehender. We therefore might expect comprehenders to show a preference for such messages. However, comprehension studies tend to emphasize the opposite: i.e., processing ease for situation-predictable content (e.g., chopping carrots with a knife). Comprehenders are known to deploy knowledge about situation plausibility during processing in fine-grained context-sensitive ways. Using self-paced reading, we test whether comprehenders can also deploy this knowledge in favor of newsworthy content to yield informativity-driven effects alongside, or instead of, plausibility-driven effects. We manipulate semantic context (unusual protagonists), syntactic construction (wh- clefts), and the communicative environment (text messages). Reading times (primarily sentence-finally) show facilitation for sentences containing newsworthy content (e.g., chopping carrots with a shovel), where the content is both unpredictable at the situation level because of its atypicality and also unpredictable at the word level because of the large number of atypical elements a speaker could potentially mention. Our studies are the first to show that informativity-driven effects are observable at all, and the results highlight the need for models that distinguish between comprehenders' estimate of content plausibility and their estimate of a speaker's decision to talk about that content.
语言是说话者传达信息的渠道之一，这些信息包括有新闻价值和有信息量的消息，即听话者原本无法预测的内容。因此，我们可能期望听话者对这类消息有偏好。然而，理解研究往往强调相反的观点：即对可预测情境内容（例如，用刀切胡萝卜）的处理更容易。众所周知，听话者在处理精细的上下文敏感信息时会利用有关情境可能性的知识。我们使用自定步速阅读来测试听话者是否也可以利用这种知识来支持有新闻价值的内容，从而产生信息驱动的效果，这些效果与可能性驱动的效果一起出现，或者替代可能性驱动的效果。我们操纵语义语境（不寻常的主角）、句法结构（wh-分裂句）和交际环境（短信）。阅读时间（主要是句子末尾）显示出对包含有新闻价值的内容的句子的促进作用（例如，用铲子切胡萝卜），这些内容在情境层面上是不可预测的，因为它们的非典型性，在词层面上也是不可预测的，因为说话者可能会提到大量的非典型元素。我们的研究首次表明，信息驱动的效果是可以观察到的，结果强调了需要区分听话者对内容可能性的估计和对说话者谈论该内容的决定的模型的必要性。
