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Least Effort and Alignment in Task-Oriented Communication.
Polyphony Bruna1, Christopher Kello1
1Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences, University of California, Merced.
Conversational partners align language through efficiency, not just mimicry. Task-oriented communication favors shared understanding via least effort, optimizing word usage for better coordination.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Linguistics
- Computational Social Science
Background:
- Conversational partners align word meanings for coordination.
- Lexical entrainment (mirroring word usage) can lead to inefficient mimicry.
- Task-oriented communication might favor other alignment processes.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate alignment processes in task-oriented Danish conversations.
- Examine how dyads learn to categorize unfamiliar items.
- Determine if alignment occurs through lexical entrainment or other mechanisms.
Main Methods:
- Dyads categorized unfamiliar "aliens" with trial-and-error feedback.
- Analyzed communication efficiency using word usage entropy.
- Measured alignment divergence with Jensen-Shannon Divergence.
- Developed a computational model of dyadic communication.
Main Results:
- Dyadic performance improved with less verbose communication (decreased word usage entropy).
- Word usage diverged between partners, indicating not lexical entrainment.
- A computational model explained results via joint least effort.
- Alignment increased by minimizing joint and conditional entropy.
Conclusions:
- Task-oriented communication alignment is not solely lexical entrainment.
- The principle of least effort drives alignment in goal-oriented dialogues.
- Efficiency and shared understanding are key in communicative alignment.
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