Processing Speaker-Specific Information in Two Stages During the Interpretation of Referential Precedents

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Science
• Psycholinguistics
• Computational Linguistics

Background:

• Effective communication relies on establishing referential precedents to reduce ambiguity.
• The cognitive processes underlying the interpretation of these precedents, particularly speaker information integration, are not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the cognitive underpinnings of referential precedent interpretation.
• To examine the role and timing of speaker-specific information in resolving ambiguity during communication.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a visual-world eye-tracking paradigm within a referential communication task.
• Analyzed moment-by-moment interpretation of precedents and the temporal influence of speaker and linguistic cues.

Main Results:

• Provided evidence supporting an extended two-stage model of processing speaker information.
• Identified two distinct temporal stages where speaker-specific information influences reference resolution.

Conclusions:

• Two distinct cognitive mechanisms, differing in timing and representational format, are involved in processing speaker information.
• These mechanisms include a cue-driven memory retrieval process and an inferential perspective-taking mechanism.