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    Knowledge likely held by others affects speakers' choices of referential expressions at different stages of discourse
    (2017-2-20)
    Achim, Amélie
    ;
    Achim, André
    ;
    ABSTRACT Effective communication requires adjusting one’s discourse to be understood by the addressee. While some suggest that choices of referring expressions are dependent on the addressee’s accessibility to the referent, there is also evidence for an egocentric bias in speech production. This study relied on two new experimental tasks designed to assess whether speakers adapt their choices of referential expressions when introducing movie characters that are either likely known or likely unknown by their addressee, and when maintaining or reintroducing these characters at a later point in the discourse. Results revealed an adjustment to the addressee in the use of character’s names (increased for likely known characters) and definite expressions (increased for likely unknown characters) observed at all the discourse stages. Use of indefinite expressions and names was affected by the participant’s own knowledge specifically when introducing the characters. These results indicate that speakers take their addressee’s likely knowledge into account at multiple discourse stages.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Knowledge likely held by others affects speakers’ choices of referential expressions at different stages of discourse
    (2017)
    Achim, Amélie M.
    ;
    Achim, André
    ;
    Effective communication requires adjusting one’s discourse to be understood by the addressee. While some suggest that choices of referring expressions are dependent on the addressee’s accessibility to the referent, there is also evidence for an egocentric bias in speech production. This study relied on two new experimental tasks designed to assess whether speakers adapt their choices of referential expressions when introducing movie characters that are either likely known or likely unknown by their addressee, and when maintaining or reintroducing these characters at a later point in the discourse. Results revealed an adjustment to the addressee in the use of character’s names (increased for likely known characters) and definite expressions (increased for likely unknown characters) observed at all the discourse stages. Use of indefinite expressions and names was affected by the participant’s own knowledge specifically when introducing the characters. These results indicate that speakers take their addressee’s likely knowledge into account at multiple discourse stages.
  • Publication
    Métadonnées seulement
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Adjustment of speaker’s referential expressions to an addressee’s likely knowledge and link with theory of mind abilities
    (2015)
    Achim, Amélie M.
    ;
    ;
    Couture, Sophie
    ;
    Achim, André
    To communicate cooperatively, speakers must determine what constitutes the common ground with their addressee and adapt their referential choices accordingly. Assessing another person’s knowledge requires a social cognition ability termed theory of mind (ToM). This study relies on a novel referential communication task requiring probabilistic inferences of the knowledge already held by an addressee prior to the study. Forty participants were asked to present 10 movie characters and the addressee, who had the same characters in a random order, was asked to place them in order. ToM and other aspects of social cognition were also assessed. Participants used more information when presenting likely unknown than likely known movie characters. They particularly increased their use of physical descriptors, which most often accompanied movie-related information. Interestingly, a significant relationship emerged between our ToM test and the increased amount of information given for the likely unknown characters. These results suggest that speakers use ToM to infer their addressee’s likely knowledge and accordingly adapt their referential expressions.