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Related Experiment Videos

Disambiguation by community membership.

R J Gerrig1, M L Littman

  • 1Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-7447.

Memory & Cognition
|July 1, 1990
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Listeners use shared common ground, like community membership, to interpret ambiguous language. This study shows community membership influences understanding, even under time pressure, highlighting its role in language comprehension.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Psycholinguistics
  • Social Psychology

Background:

  • Effective communication relies on shared understanding or common ground.
  • Listeners frequently infer meaning based on assumptions about speakers' knowledge and perspectives.
  • Ambiguous utterances require listeners to access and utilize shared information for accurate interpretation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how common ground, specifically community membership, shapes the interpretation of ambiguous statements.
  • To determine if and how social group affiliation influences pragmatic language processing.
  • To explore the role of common ground in constraining utterance interpretation.

Main Methods:

  • Three experiments were conducted to assess participants' judgments of ambiguous utterances.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Participants' sensitivity to community membership as a source of common ground was evaluated.
  • Experimental conditions manipulated evaluation pace (leisurely vs. time pressure) and challenged judgments.

    • Main Results:

    • Participants demonstrated sensitivity to community membership when interpreting ambiguous utterances, particularly under relaxed time constraints.
    • This effect persisted even under significant time pressure, indicating robust reliance on common ground.
    • Judgments informed by community membership were comparable to those based on certain knowledge, except when directly challenged.

    Conclusions:

    • Common ground, operationalized as community membership, plays a crucial role in constraining the interpretation of ambiguous language.
    • Language comprehension models should incorporate mechanisms for accessing and utilizing shared social knowledge.
    • The findings underscore the dynamic interplay between social cognition and linguistic processing.