The influence of partner-specific memory associations on language production: Evidence from picture naming

In typical interactions, speakers frequently produce utterances that appear to reflect beliefs about the common ground shared with particular addressees. Horton and Gerrig (2005a) proposed that one important basis for audience design is the manner in which conversational partners serve as cues for the automatic retrieval of associated information from memory. This paper reports the results of two experiments demonstrating the influence of partner-specific memory associations on language production. Following an initial task designed to establish associations between specific words (Experiment 1) or object categories (Experiment 2) and each of two partners, participants named a series of pictures in the context of the same two individuals. Naming latencies were shortest for responses associated with the current partner, and were not significantly correlated with explicit recall of partner-item associations. Such partner-driven memory retrieval may constrain the information accessible to speakers as they produce utterances for particular addressees.