Online pragmatic interpretations of scalar adjectives are affected by perceived speaker reliability

Abstract

Linguistic communication requires understanding of words in relation to their context. Among various aspects of context, one that has received relatively little attention until recently is the speakers themselves. We asked whether comprehenders’ online language comprehension is affected by the perceived reliability with which a speaker formulates pragmatically well-formed utterances. In two eye-tracking experiments, we conceptually replicated and extended a seminal work by Grodner and Sedivy (2011). A between-participant manipulation was used to control reliability with which a speaker follows implicit pragmatic conventions (e.g., using a scalar adjective in accordance with contextual contrast). Experiment 1 replicated Grodner and Sedivy’s finding that contrastive inference in response to scalar adjectives was suspended when both the spoken input and the instructions provided evidence of the speaker’s (un)reliability: For speech from the reliable speaker, comprehenders exhibited the early fixations attributable to a contextually-situated, contrastive interpretation of a scalar adjective. In contrast, for speech from the unreliable speaker, comprehenders did not exhibit such early fixations. Experiment 2 provided novel evidence of the reliability effect in the absence of explicit instructions. In both experiments, the effects emerged in the earliest expected time window given the stimuli sentence structure. The results suggest that real-time interpretations of spoken language are optimized in the context of a speaker identity, characteristics of which are extrapolated across utterances.

The effect of speaker reliability on adult cross-situational word learning

“…First, to determine if speaker reliability could be detected from the speaker's language use itself; and second, to make the experiment more ecologically valid. The latter stems from the observation that overt signaling of speaker unreliability is typically unavailable in real-life contexts (Gardner et al 2021).…”

Speaker-Specific Cues Influence Semantic Disambiguation

“…More specifically, speaker identity (also known as speaker- or talker-specificity) has been shown to be an influential factor in language processing across multiple linguistic domains, such as phonology (Roettger & Franke, 2019 ; Trude & Brown-Schmidt, 2012 ), spoken word recognition (Arnold et al, 2007 ; Creel et al, 2008 ), sentence processing (Kamide, 2012 ), and semantics/pragmatics (Bergen & Grodner, 2012 ; Gardner et al, 2021 ; Pogue et al, 2016 ; Yildirim et al, 2016 ).…”

“…Research on a range of linguistic-pragmatic phenomena has demonstrated speaker-specific effects on the interpretation of pragmatic intent. For example, contrastive inferences are suspended if a particular speaker habitually overmodifies a noun, e.g., ‘the tall cup’ when referring to a singleton item (Gardner et al, 2021 ; Grodner & Sedivy, 2011 ), and listeners infer that previously under-informative speakers will remain so in their descriptions using different adjectives (Pogue et al, 2016 ). Similarly, addressees adapt to speaker-specific tendencies in the intended meaning of scalar quantifiers such as ‘some’ and ‘many’ (Yildirim et al, 2016 ).…”

Preschoolers modulate contrastive inferences during online language comprehension

“…If, however, contrastive inferences are more automatized or context‐invariant, the behavior of a situation‐specific speaker may have no or little influence on listeners' interpretation. Using these paradigms, studies have shown that, under certain circumstances, adult listeners adjust their contrastive inferences when given evidence that highlights the non‐conventional communicative behavior of the speaker (Gardner et al, 2021; Grodner & Sedivy, 2011; Ryskin et al, 2019). However, to produce this effect, it appears that the relevant evidence needs to be both exceptionally strong and abundant, including the speaker's use of over‐ and under‐informative descriptions, incorrect labels, and often explicit statements about the speaker's language impairment (Grodner & Sedivy, 2011; Ryskin et al, 2019).…”

“…The manipulation varying speaker conventionality was somewhat different than past studies. In previous research, the unconventional speaker produced various types of non‐optimal sentences: over‐informative descriptions (i.e., where adjectives were unnecessary), under‐informative descriptions (i.e., where the lack of modifiers led to referential ambiguity), and sometimes incorrect descriptions (i.e., where the labeling of object or location was wrong; Gardner et al, 2021; Grodner & Sedivy, 2011; Ryskin et al, 2019). Under‐informative and incorrect descriptions provided by a speaker might give children the impression that the speaker is unreliable and inaccurate instead of unconventional in language use.…”