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People adjust their language to match others, aligning with both observed and expected speech patterns. This linguistic convergence is stronger when expectations and reality align, and expectations adapt when they don't.

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Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Sociolinguistics
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Individuals naturally adapt their language to their communication partners.
  • Recent research indicates language convergence can be influenced by social cues and expectations, not just direct observation.
  • The interplay between observed and expected linguistic behavior, especially when contradictory, requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how individuals' linguistic convergence is affected by the alignment or misalignment of observed and expected partner behavior.
  • To determine if and how people update their expectations when faced with contradictory linguistic input.
  • To explore the generalization of learned linguistic patterns to new partners within the same social group.

Main Methods:

  • A cooperative map task experiment involving online communication using a novel "alien" language.
  • Manipulation of explicit linguistic expectations for one participant in each pair, while controlling for observed behavior consistency.
  • Phased experimental design with different partners in each phase to assess adaptation and generalization.

Main Results:

  • Participants demonstrated convergence towards both observed and expected linguistic behaviors.
  • Convergence was enhanced when observed and expected behaviors were aligned.
  • When expectations and observations conflicted, participants updated their expectations without a significant drop in convergence.
  • Learned linguistic patterns were generalized to novel partners of the same "alien" species.

Conclusions:

  • Linguistic convergence is influenced by both direct observation and social expectations.
  • Individuals dynamically update their expectations based on communicative feedback.
  • Findings support the role of social information in shaping language production and processing, aligning with real-world language accommodation.
  • No significant correlation was found between linguistic convergence and task performance.