A Cognitive Architecture for the Coordination of Utterances

Abstract

Dialog partners coordinate with each other to reach a common goal. The analogy with other joint activities has sparked interesting observations (e.g., about the norms governing turn-taking) and has informed studies of linguistic alignment in dialog. However, the parallels between language and action have not been fully explored, especially with regard to the mechanisms that support moment-by-moment coordination during language use in conversation. We review the literature on joint actions to show (i) what sorts of mechanisms allow coordination and (ii) which types of experimental paradigms can be informative of the nature of such mechanisms. Regarding (i), there is converging evidence that the actions of others can be represented in the same format as one’s own actions. Furthermore, the predicted actions of others are taken into account in the planning of one’s own actions. Similarly, we propose that interlocutors are able to coordinate their acts of production because they can represent their partner’s utterances. They can then use these representations to build predictions, which they take into account when planning self-generated utterances. Regarding (ii), we propose a new methodology to study interactive language. Psycholinguistic tasks that have traditionally been used to study individual language production are distributed across two participants, who either produce two utterances simultaneously or complete each other’s utterances.

The Self-Organization of Human Interaction

“…First, researchers in these areas are beginning to tap into the cognitive mechanisms that might underlie social and linguistic interaction (e.g. Brown-Schmidt, 2009a,b;Gambi & Pickering, 2011;Horton, 2005;Mehler, Weiß, Menke, & Lücking, 2010;Reitter, Keller, & Moore, 2011). This advances the valuable work on observational and conversation analysis that has shed great light on the structure of interaction (Sacks, Jefferson, & Schegloff, 1995;Schegloff, 2007), but is not capable of identifying the cognitive processes that drive it.…”

On predicting others’ words: Electrophysiological evidence of prediction in speech production

“…According to Pickering and Garrod (2007) (see also, Gambi & Pickering, 2011;Pickering & Garrod, 2013, for reviews) the language production system generates forward models (imitative plans) at specific levels of representation, including semantics, syntax, and phonology, to predict utterances during language comprehension. However, apart from studies revealing the involvement of motor processes during speech perception (e.g., Fadiga, Craighero, Buccino, & Rizzolatti, 2002; motor theories of speech perception, see Hickok, 2012), little is known about the exact role that our production system plays in predicting others' utterances, especially at more abstract levels of representation (e.g., lexical) where articulation is not present.…”

Predicting form and meaning: Evidence from brain potentials

“…However, rather than making such a strong claim about the absolute time course of the unfolding form-prediction, we think that slower SOAs might in principle benefit all aspects of prediction. After all, people are more likely to finish the sentences of someone who speaks slowly or hesitantly than of someone who speaks fast and fluently (see Gambi & Pickering, 2011).…”