Perspective conflict disrupts pragmatic inference in real-time language comprehension

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Psycholinguistics
• Experimental Psychology

Background:

• Understanding how listeners process ambiguous language is crucial for communication.
• Speaker's perspective influences interpretation, but its role in resolving temporary ambiguities is debated.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how listeners use speaker perspective to resolve temporary ambiguities in spoken language.
• To examine the impact of conflicting perspectives on reference resolution.

Main Methods:

• Two visual-world eyetracking experiments were conducted.
• A novel "Display Change" task created conflicting speaker-addressee perspectives.
• The point of disambiguation was independently controlled for each perspective.

Main Results:

• Listeners only resolved references early when both speaker and listener perspectives allowed for early disambiguation.
• Conflicting perspectives led to reduced preferential looks and slower response times.
• Disruption suggests either pragmatic inference suspension or cognitive limitations in handling incompatible perspectives.

Conclusions:

• Existing perspective-taking theories may not fully account for real-time language processing.
• Cognitive load or suspension of pragmatic reasoning hinders interpretation when perspectives clash.
• Future research should explore the cognitive mechanisms underlying perspective-taking in communication.