The impact of memory demands on audience design during language production.

Abstract Speakers often tailor their utterances to the needs of particular addressees-a process called audience design. We argue that important aspects of audience design can be understood as emergent features of ordinary memory processes. This perspective contrasts with earlier views that presume special processes or representations. To support our account, we present a study in which Directors engaged in a referential communication task with two independent Matchers. Over several rounds, the Directors instructed the Matchers how to arrange a set of picture cards. For half the triads, the Directors' card categories were initially distributed orthogonally by Matcher (e.g. Directors described birds and dogs with one Matcher and fish and frogs with the other). For the other triads, the Directors' card categories initially overlapped across Matchers (e.g. Directors described two members of each category with each Matcher). We predicted that the orthogonal configuration would more readily allow Directors to encode associations between particular cards and particular Matchers-and thus allow those Directors to provide more evidence for audience design. Content analyses of Directors' utterances from two final rounds supported our prediction. We suggest that audience design depends on the memory representations to which speakers have ready access given the time constraints of routine conversation.

The real foundation of fictional worlds

I argue that judgements of what is ‘true in a fiction’ presuppose the Reality Assumption: the assumption that everything that is (really) true is fictionally the case, unless excluded by the work. By contrast with the more familiar Reality Principle, the Reality Assumption is not a rule for inferring implied content from what is explicit. Instead it provides an array of real-world truths that can be used in such inferences. I claim that the Reality Assumption is essential to our ability to understand stories, drawing on a range of empirical evidence that demonstrates our reliance on it in narrative comprehension. However, the Reality Assumption has several unintuitive consequences, not least that what is fictionally the case includes countless facts that neither authors nor readers could (or should) ever consider. I argue that such consequences provide no reason to reject the Reality Assumption. I conclude that we should take fictions, like non-fictions, to be about the real world

Metaphor-based schemas and text representations: Making connections through conceptual metaphors

Four experiments were conducted to examine the role of metaphor-based schemas in text comprehension and representation. In Experiment 1, schemas facilitated recognition judgments for schema-related sentences that had been presented in a text. Similar facilitation was found for the recognition of individual words in Experiments 2, 3, and 4. The results are interpreted as evidence for the use of metaphor-based schemas to link elements within a text representation. From the perspective of cognitive psychology, there are at least two distinct questions that research on metaphor can attempt to answer. One can ask, first, what processes are used to comprehend metaphors, and second, what products result from metaphor use and comprehension (Gibbs & Gerrig, 1989). Much of the experimental literature on metaphor has addressed questions of process. Numerous studies have examined how metaphors are interpreted (Glucksberg, 1991; Glucksber

Pronoun resolution without pronouns: Some consequences of memory-based text processing

A memory-based processing approach to discourse comprehension emphasizes the rapid deployment of information in memory to facilitate understanding of the text that is currently being read. S. B. Greene, R. J. Gerrig, G. McKoon, and R. Ratcliff (1994) demonstrated that when a text described the reunion of 2 characters who had previously discussed a 3rd character, the accessibility of the 3rd character increased, and the use of an unheralded pronoun (R. J. Gerrig, 1986) to refer to that character was felicitous. In experiments in this article, the authors demonstrate that concepts related to the referent of the unheralded pronoun also increase in accessibility and that those concepts form associations in memory with concepts present in the discourse at the time the pronoun is used. The authors also show that the increase in accessibility for the referent of the pronoun, as well as the appropriate long-term memory associations, occurs even in the absence of the pronoun. A New Yorker profile of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas described a scene in which Thomas limped on stage to appear on a conservative talk show with host Mark Larson (Toobin, 1993). The studio audience applauded enthusiastically as Thomas, already on crutches from his basketball accident, squeezed past Larson to make his way to his designated position in front of the camera. As Thomas hobbled by, Larson 'quipped, "I know what people are thinking right now: Boy, the Committee was really tough with those hearings, and now this.... " As Thomas settled into place, Larson said, "She just won't let up, will she? " (p. 45). Who is she? Members of the audience were certainly meant to know as the article went on to say " 'She just won't let up, will she? ' " There was no need to use the name. Even two years later, even in front of the Justice's friends, Anita Hill remained the ever-present "She " in Clarence Thomas's life (Toobin, 1993, p. 45). We have labeled pronouns like Larson's "she " unheralde