Language in dialogue: when confederates might be hazardous to your data.

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Experiments modeling spoken dialogue often employ confederates.
• The use and deployment of confederates are influenced by researchers' theories on dialogue.

Purpose of the Study:

• To survey the benefits and risks of using confederates in dialogue studies.
• To identify concerns guiding confederate deployment.
• To provide recommendations for using confederates effectively.

Main Methods:

• Literature review of studies using confederates in dialogue research.
• Analysis of four key concerns in confederate deployment.
• Discussion of studies addressing these concerns with varying results.

Main Results:

• Confederates are beneficial for studying responses to unusual behaviors or low-frequency linguistic forms.
• Confederates are particularly useful when the experimental task requires them to initiate conversation.
• Confederates pose risks in the addressee role, especially with uncontrolled nonverbal behavior or excessive knowledge.

Conclusions:

• Researchers must weigh the benefits and risks of using experimental confederates.
• Confederate deployment strategies should align with experimental hypotheses and task demands.
• Careful consideration is needed to ensure confederates do not alter the nature of the dialogue.