Emergence and adaptation of referential conventions in dialogue

When speakers in dialogue are faced with the need to repeatedly refer to the same items, they usually use the same references they or their partners had used before. These previously-used references act as precedents, standing in speakers’ memory as successful ways of solving that particular communicative need. From mechanistic models explaining this reuse as a consequence of low-level priming (Pickering & Garrod, 2004), to models assuming sophisticated partner-modelling processes (Clark & Marshall, 1981; Clark & Wilkes-Gibbs, 1986), most theories assume speakers will maintain their referential choices throughout the dialogue. While references might be modified to discard superfluous elements (as in referential reduction, Krauss & Weinheimer, 1964; or simplification, Bard & Aylett, 2005), conceptualisations will be preserved. However, there are several reasons why speakers might need to change their previous referential choices: a context change might render the old reference insufficient to identify the target, or overly detailed, prompting the listener to wonder if additional meanings are implied. It might also be that the repetition of the task highlights a better referential alternative, or that additional information makes other alternatives more salient for the speakers. In this thesis, I present an investigation of the dynamics of reference repetition and change in dialogue, bringing together a theoretical analysis of the existing literature and 5 experiments that aim to clarify how, when, and why speakers might change their referential choices. Experiment 1 explores the dynamics of reference change when the repetition of a task creates additional pressures that were not evident in an initial exposure. The experiment compares pairs and individual speakers describing positions in two spatial contexts (regular or irregular mazes, as in Garrod & Anderson, 1987; Garrod & Doherty, 1994) that cue participants into using different referential descriptions. As the task is repeated over 3 rounds, an additional pressure for efficiency is created, pushing participants across contexts into using one of the two initial descriptive choices. Crucially, only interacting pairs of participants adapted to this additional pressure by switching to a more efficient alternative, while participants completing the task individually maintained their initial choices. Additionally, this chapter reports a pilot study of the same experiment in 4-person groups that showed a switching pattern similar to the one found in interacting pairs. Experiments 2 and 3 further investigate the drivers of linguistic change in referential choice and the relationship between interaction and adaptation found on experiment 1. Experiment 2 explores the relationship between context change and linguistic change. Using the maze game paradigm, the experiment presented individuals and pairs of participants with either the same maze in each round of the task, or different mazes in the first and the second halves of the experiment. The results of Experiment 2 offer some support to the conclusions of Experiment 1, as participants switched to Abstract descriptions as they gained experience in the task; however there were no significant differences between Interaction conditions, nor between Same or Different mazes. Experiment 3 was aimed at exploring which features of interaction were relevant for reference change. The experiment used the maze game in different interactive setups, in which participants played a first round of the game either as Matchers (in direct interaction with the Director) or Overhearers (having access to another pair’s dialogue), and three successive rounds as Directors with either the same partner as in the first round, or a new partner. Participants showed higher levels of adaptation as they gained experience in the task; while the different interactive setups did not significantly influence their reference choices. Experiments 4 and 5 further explore the relationship between reference change and participant role in interaction. Using a picture matching paradigm (Brennan & Clark, 1996), Experiment 4 tested participants interacting with either the Same Partner throughout, a New Partner in the second half of the experiment, or an Overhearer (who had witnessed the first half of the experiment) in the second half. Participants in all conditions maintained previously used overspecific picture descriptions even when those detailed descriptions were not needed to identify the referents, pointing towards a predominance of speaker-centred factors in reference choice. Experiment 5 used a similar interactive setup, testing participants on a larger set of pictures. Participants maintained their overspecific descriptions only if interacting with the Same Partner they had on the first half of the experiment, or with the Overhearer, switching to context-appropriate basic-level descriptions if interacting with a New Partner. Taken together, both experiments suggest a complex balance between speaker-centred and audience-design factors in the potential change of reference choices, where speakers need to weigh their own effort against the communicative needs of their partner. These experiments highlight the crucial role of interaction in the adaptation of reference choices to changes in context, and show that individuals’ ‘conservative bias’ that leads them to maintain their own previously used references can be overturned in the search for better communicative alternatives in interactive dialogue

The influence of shared visual context on the successful emergence of conventions in a referential communication task

Abstract Human communication is thoroughly context bound. We present two experiments investigating the importance of the shared context, that is, the amount of knowledge two interlocutors have in common, for the successful emergence and use of novel conventions. Using a referential communication task where black-and-white pictorial symbols are used to convey colors, pairs of participants build shared conventions peculiar to their dyad without experimenter feedback, relying purely on ostensive-inferential communication. Both experiments demonstrate that access to the visual context promotes more successful communication. Importantly, success improves cumulatively, supporting the view that pairs establish conventional ways of using the symbols to communicate. Furthermore, Experiment 2 suggests that dyads with access to the visual context successfully adapt the conventions built for one color space to another color space, unlike dyads lacking it. In linking experimental pragmatics with language evolution, the study illustrates the benefits of exploring the emergence of linguistic conventions using an ostensive-inferential model of communication.1. Introduction 1.1. Artificial language experiments and the emergence problem 1.2. Referential communication tasks and interaction 1.3. The current study 1.4. Ethical approval and preregistration 2. Experiment 1 2.1. Method 2.1.1. Participants 2.1.2. Materials 2.1.3. Procedure 2.1.4. Experimental task 2.2. Results 2.2.1. Does the shared visual context improve communicative success and do pairs improve over time? 2.2.2. Exploration of the questionnaires 2.3. Discussion 3. Experiment 2 3.1. Method 3.1.1. Participants 3.1.2. Materials 3.1.3. Procedure 3.2. Results 3.2.1. Can the results of Experiment 1 be replicated? 3.2.2. Does the shared visual context increase the number of conventions? 3.2.3. Are conventions developed by shared visual context pairs more generalizable? 3.3. Discussion 4. General discussion 5. Conclusio

Experimental Semiotics: A Review

In the last few years a new line of research has appeared in the literature. This line of research, which may be referred to as experimental semiotics (ES; Galantucci, 2009; Galantucci and Garrod, 2010), focuses on the experimental investigation of novel forms of human communication. In this review we will (a) situate ES in its conceptual context, (b) illustrate the main varieties of studies thus far conducted by experimental semioticians, (c) illustrate three main themes of investigation which have emerged within this line of research, and (d) consider implications of this work for cognitive neuroscience

Genre-specific persuasion in oral presentations : adaptation to the audience through multimodal persuasive strategies

Product pitches, research dissemination talks and conference presentations are three oral genres that share important characteristics. Previous literature has described them as multimodal and persuasive oral genres and has shown that speakers resort to multimodal persuasive strategies to achieve their communicative goals. However, they are used in different contexts, which is likely to affect their use of multimodal persuasion, and raises questions as to how genre-specific persuasion is. The aim of this paper is to explore how speakers adapt their multimodal persuasive efforts to the communicative situation established in each genre, and how this is reflected multimodally. This study combines multimodal discourse analysis and ethnographic methods. The results suggest that speakers multimodally convey a different relationship with the audience in each genre

A computational model of the cultural co-evolution of language and mindreading

Contains fulltext : 226366.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)39 p

The emergence and organization of communicative signals through interaction

Social interaction is a key feature of our daily lives; humans simply cannot help but interact with one another. This interaction is special with regard to its quantity, but it also shows distinct qualities such as a special propensity to read each other’s intentions. One specific kind of interaction that humans engage in frequently and that exemplifies this particularly well is communication. By producing and interpreting signals in their specific context, interlocutors are able to communicate successfully, even about concepts for which they do not yet share conventional signs. Over repeated interaction, these novel signals can conventionalize, and eventually be culturally transmitted to new individuals. Through repeated episodes of transmission, entire communicative systems, such as languages, can emerge and evolve. In this thesis, I build on the framework above to study how human communicative signals can emerge and become organized via interaction. To this end, I present the results of three empirical studies each concerned with one specific question. The first study represents two artificial language experiments investigating the role of context for the successful emergence of novel communicative conventions, the second study focuses on the evolution of population-level cultural patterns, and the third study aims to relate existing communicative conventions about color terms in natural languages to novel conventions created within a smartphone application. The three studies show the usefulness of combining different methodological approaches – experimental laboratory studies, large-scale online experiments, and massive data sets of online behavior – to address questions at different levels of granularity. Taken together, the studies place individual interactions firmly at the base of both the emergence and organization of communicative signals. As a result of these interactions, entire systems of communication can emerge

The emergence of information systems: a communication-based theory

An information system is more than just the information technology; it is the system that emerges from the complex interactions and relationships between the information technology and the organization. However, what impact information technology has on an organization and how organizational structures and organizational change influence information technology remains an open question. We propose a theory to explain how communication structures emerge and adapt to environmental changes. We operationalize the interplay of information technology and organization as language communities whose members use and develop domain-specific languages for communication. Our theory is anchored in the philosophy of language. In developing it as an emergent perspective, we argue that information systems are self-organizing and that control of this ability is disseminated throughout the system itself, to the members of the language community. Information technology influences the dynamics of this adaptation process as a fundamental constraint leading to perturbations for the information system. We demonstrate how this view is separated from the entanglement in practice perspective and show that this understanding has far-reaching consequences for developing, managing, and examining information systems

Book Review

Nostalgia and Recollection in Victorian Culture (Ann C. Colley) (Reviewed by William A. Kumbier, Missouri Southern State College) The Linguistic Turn in Hermeneutic Philosophy (Cristina Lafont; trans. José Medina) (Reviewed by Moshe Gold, Fordham University) Closed Encounters: Literary Politics and Public Culture (Jeffrey Wallen) (Reviewed by C. Jon Delogu, Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail) The Arts and Sciences of Criticism (Ed. David Fuller and Patricia Waugh) (Reviewed by Jeffrey Wallen, Hampshire College) Origins of Democratic Culture: Printing, Petitions, and the Public Sphere in Early-Modern England (David Zaret) (Reviewed by David Cressy, Ohio State University) Shakespeare and Social Dialogue: Dramatic Language and Elizabethan Letters (Lynne Magnusson) (Reviewed by Gary Schneider, Wayne State University) The Gothic Family Romance: Heterosexuality, Child Sacrifice, and the Anglo-Irish Colonial Order (Margot Gayle Backus) (Reviewed by Kellie Donovan Wixson, Tufts University