Relevance of the listener’s motor system in recalling phrases enacted by the speaker

Memory for series of action phrases improves in listeners when speakers accompany each phrase with congruent gestures compared to when speakers stay still. Studies reveal that the listeners’ motor system, at encoding, plays a crucial role in this enactment effect. We present two experiments on gesture observation, which explored the role of the listeners’ motor system at recall. The participants listened to the phrases uttered by a speaker in two conditions in each experiment. In the gesture condition, the speaker uttered the phrases with accompanying congruent gestures, and in the no-gesture condition, the speaker stayed still while uttering the phrases. The participants were then invited, in both conditions of the experiments, to perform a motor task while recalling the phrases proffered by the speaker. The results revealed that the advantage of observing gestures on memory disappears if the listeners move at recall arms and hands (same motor effectors moved by the speaker, Experiment 1a), but not when the listeners move legs and feet (different motor effectors from those moved by the speaker, Experiment 1b). The results suggest that the listeners’ motor system is involved not only during the encoding of action phrases uttered by a speaker but also when recalling these phrases during retrieval.     

The relations between children's communicative perspective-taking and executive functioning

Two experiments investigated children’s communicative perspective-taking ability. In Experiment 1, 4- to 5-year-old children were tested on two referential communication tasks, as well as on measures of inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. Results document children’s emergent use of the perspective of their speaking partner to guide their communicative behaviors in both a production and comprehension task. In Experiment 2, 3- to 4-year-old children used a speaker’s perspective to guide their interpretation of instructions. In both experiments, egocentric interpretations of speaker requests were negatively correlated with children’s inhibitory control skills. Results of these studies demonstrate that young children can differentiate between information that is accessible to the speaker versus privileged knowledge, and use this information to guide their communicative behaviors. Furthermore, the results suggest that children’s inhibitory control skills allow them to inhibit their own perspective, enabling them to make use of their communicative partner’s perspective.     

Harmonic and rhythmic influences on musical expectancy

The effects of harmony and rhythm on expectancy formation were studied in two experiments. In both studies, we generated musical passages consisting of a melodic line accompanied by four harmonic (chord) events. These sequences varied in their harmonic content, the rhythmic periodicity of the three context chords prior to the final chord, and the ending time of the final chord itself. In Experiment 1, listeners provided ratings for how well the final chord in a chord sequence fit their expectations for what was to come next; analyses revealed subtle changes in ratings as a function of both harmonic and rhythmic variation. Experiment 2 extended these results; listeners made a speeded reaction time judgment on whether the final chord of a sequence belonged with its set of context chords. Analysis of the reaction time data suggested that harmonic and rhythmic variation also influenced the speed of musical processing. These results are interpreted with reference to current models of music cognition, and they highlight the need for rhythmical weighting factors within the psychological representation of tonal/pitch information.     

Language in dialogue: when confederates might be hazardous to your data

Experiments that aim to model language processing in spoken dialogue contexts often use confederates as speakers or addressees. However, the decision of whether to use a confederate, and of precisely how to deploy one, is shaped by researchers’ explicit theories and implicit assumptions about the nature of dialogue. When can a confederate fulfill the role of conversational partner without changing the nature of the dialogue itself? We survey the benefits and risks of using confederates in studies of language in dialogue contexts, identifying four concerns that appear to guide how confederates are deployed. We then discuss several studies that have addressed these concerns differently—and, in some cases, have found different results. We conclude with recommendations for how to weigh the benefits and risks of using experimental confederates in dialogue studies: Confederates are best used when an experimental hypothesis concerns responses to unusual behaviors or low-frequency linguistic forms and when the experimental task calls for the confederate partner to take the initiative as speaker. Confederates can be especially risky in the addressee role, especially if their nonverbal behavior is uncontrolled and if they know more than is warranted by the experimental task.     

The reciprocal link between multiculturalism and perspective-taking: How ideological and self-regulatory approaches to managing diversity reinforce each other

Five experiments tested the hypothesis that there is a bi-directional link between ideological (multiculturalism and color-blindness) and self-regulatory (perspective-taking and stereotype-suppression) approaches to managing diversity. A first set of experiments found that exposure to multiculturalism facilitated perceptual and conceptual forms of perspective-taking. Specifically, a multicultural ideology prime strengthened motivations to engage in perspective-taking (Experiment 1) and led participants to adopt spontaneously an outgroup target's visual perspective (Experiment 2) and to recognize that an outgroup target did not possess their privileged knowledge (Experiment 3), as compared with a color-blind ideology prime or baseline condition. A second set of experiments documented the reciprocal relationship: Actively considering an outgroup member's perspective strengthened both deliberate (Experiment 4) and automatic (Experiment 5) positivity toward multiculturalism relative to color-blindness. These findings suggest that ideological and self-regulatory approaches to diversity management are intimately connected and can reinforce each other.     

Generalization in perceptual learning for speech

Lexical context strongly influences listeners’ identification of ambiguous sounds. For example, a sound midway between /f/ and /s/ is reported as /f/ in “sheri_’” but as /s/ in “Pari_.” Norris, McQueen, and Cutler (2003) have demonstrated that after hearing such lexically determined phonemes, listeners expand their phonemic categories to include more ambiguous tokens than before. We tested whether listeners adjust their phonemic categories for a specific speaker: Do listeners learn a particular speaker’s “accent”? Similarly, we examined whether perceptual learning is specific to the particular ambiguous phonemes that listeners hear, or whether the adjustments generalize to related sounds. Participants heard ambiguous /d/ or /t/ phonemes during a lexical decision task. They then categorized sounds on /d/-/t/ and /b/-/p/ continua, either in the same voice that they had heard for lexical decision, or in a different voice. Perceptual learning generalized across both speaker and test continua: Changes in perceptual representations are robust and broadly tuned.     

Sense of fairness in the division of labor in close relationships: Procedure and gender role ideology

The present study examined whether the procedures used in establishing a couple's division of labor and each partner's gender role ideology have a significant impact on the perception of fairness in the division of labor. The data collection involved conducting a questionnaire survey of 181 Japanese participants who shared basic household work and paid work. The results from a multiple regression analysis presented a clear pattern of sex differences in the way and degree to which fairness was perceived. In the model for women, the variables of the procedure and gender role ideology had significant predictive power. In particular, the interactive communication procedure was a powerful predictor of women's sense of fairness. In contrast, among men the perception of fairness in the division of labor did not have a significant relation to the variables of the procedure and gender role ideology.     

Intimacy of Self-Disclosure and Response Processes as Factors Affecting the Development of Interpersonal Relationships

Abstract

This study examined the effects of low and increasing intimacy as patterns of self-disclosure and the effects of perspective taking and egocentrism as response styles on the development of a meaningful relationship. Subjects, 44 American female nursing students, responded to a stimulus form consisting of either 15 low-intimacy or increasing-intimacy, open-ended statements; trained confederates responded to their disclosures with either egocentric or perspective-taking behavior. Results of this study indicated that perceptions of the interaction and the potential for further relationship development were more positive under conditions of increasing intimacy; progression of disclosures seemed to produce perceptions leading to further relationship development. The positive effects of perspective taking were strongly supported. Results suggested that progressive self-disclosure combined with response to the other's disclosures in a perspective-taking manner increase the probability of relationship development.     

Accent modulates access to word meaning: Evidence for a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition

Speech carries accent information relevant to determining the speaker’s linguistic and social background. A series of web-based experiments demonstrate that accent cues can modulate access to word meaning. In Experiments 1–3, British participants were more likely to retrieve the American dominant meaning (e.g., hat meaning of “bonnet”) in a word association task if they heard the words in an American than a British accent. In addition, results from a speeded semantic decision task (Experiment 4) and sentence comprehension task (Experiment 5) confirm that accent modulates on-line meaning retrieval such that comprehension of ambiguous words is easier when the relevant word meaning is dominant in the speaker’s dialect. Critically, neutral-accent speech items, created by morphing British- and American-accented recordings, were interpreted in a similar way to accented words when embedded in a context of accented words (Experiment 2). This finding indicates that listeners do not use accent to guide meaning retrieval on a word-by-word basis; instead they use accent information to determine the dialectic identity of a speaker and then use their experience of that dialect to guide meaning access for all words spoken by that person. These results motivate a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition in which comprehenders determine key characteristics of their interlocutor and use this knowledge to guide word meaning access.     

Forgetting the Unforgettable Through Conversation: Socially Shared Retrieval-Induced Forgetting of September 11 Memories

ABSTRACT— A speaker's selective recounting of memories shared with a listener will induce both the speaker and the listener to forget unmentioned, related material more than unmentioned, unrelated material. We extended this finding of within-individual and socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting to well-rehearsed, emotionally intense memories that are similar for the speaker and listener, but differ in specifics. A questionnaire probed participants' memory of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Questions and responses were grouped into category-exemplar structures. Then, participants selectively rehearsed their answers (using a structured interview in Experiment 1 and a joint recounting between pairs in Experiment 2 ). In subsequent recognition tests, response times yielded evidence of within-individual retrieval-induced forgetting and socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting. This result indicates that conversations can alter memories of speakers and listeners in similar ways, even when the memories differ. We discuss socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting as a mechanism for the formation of collective memories.     

Foreign accent strength and listener familiarity with an accent codetermine speed of perceptual adaptation

We investigated how the strength of a foreign accent and varying types of experience with foreign-accented speech influence the recognition of accented words. In Experiment 1, native Dutch listeners with limited or extensive prior experience with German-accented Dutch completed a cross-modal priming experiment with strongly, medium, and weakly accented words. Participants with limited experience were primed by the medium and weakly accented words, but not by the strongly accented words. Participants with extensive experience were primed by all accent types. In Experiments 2 and 3, Dutch listeners with limited experience listened to a short story before doing the cross-modal priming task. In Experiment 2, the story was spoken by the priming task speaker and either contained strongly accented words or did not. Strongly accented exposure led to immediate priming by novel strongly accented words, while exposure to the speaker without strongly accented tokens led to priming only in the experiment’s second half. In Experiment 3, listeners listened to the story with strongly accented words spoken by a different German-accented speaker. Listeners were primed by the strongly accented words, but again only in the experiment’s second half. Together, these results show that adaptation to foreign-accented speech is rapid but depends on accent strength and on listener familiarity with those strongly accented words.     

You said it before and you'll say it again: expectations of consistency in communication

Repeated reference creates strong expectations in addressees that a speaker will continue to use the same expression for the same object. The authors investigate the root reason for these expectations by comparing a cooperativeness-based account (Grice, 1975) with a simpler consistency-based account. In two eye-tracking experiments, the authors investigated the expectations underlying the effect of precedents on comprehension. The authors show that listeners expect speakers to be consistent in their use of expressions even when these expectations cannot be motivated by the assumption of cooperativeness. The authors conclude that though this phenomenon seems to be motivated by cooperativeness, listeners' expectation that speakers be consistent in their use of expressions is governed by a general expectation of consistency.     

Obligatory “expectations” of expressive timing induced by perception of musical structure

Previous research has shown that, in a task requiring the detection of local deviations from mechanically precise timing in music, the relative detectability of deviations in different positions is closely related to the typical expressive timing pattern musicians produce when playing the music. This result suggests that listeners expect to hear music expressively timed and compensate for the absence of expressive timing. Three new detection experiments shed additional light on the nature of these timing expectations in musically trained listeners. Experiment 1 shows that repeated exposure to an atypically (but not unmusically) timed performance leaves listeners' timing expectations unaffected. Experiment 2 demonstrates that the expectations do not manifest themselves when listeners merely imagine the music in synchrony with a click track. Experiment 3, however, shows that the timing expectations are fully operational when the click track is superimposed on the music. These results reveal timing “expectations” to be an obligatory consequence of the ongoing auditory perception of musical structure. Received: 5 November 1996 / Accepted: 26 February 1997     

MODELING INFLUENCES ON ALCOHOLICS' RATES OF ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION

Two experiments were designed to examine modeling influences on alcoholics' alcohol consumption. Three male alcoholics were paired with confederates, posing as alcoholics. In Experiment 1, alcoholic-confederate pairs participated in a 1-hour taste-rating task, which involved rating different wines on a list of adjectives. Experiment 2 consisted of 1-hour ad lib access to wine in a naturalistic bar setting. In both experiments, confederates alternated 15-minute periods of heavy and light consumption, drinking fluids resembling wine. The amount of wine consumed by alcoholics in each period was secretly recorded and the data examined on a single subject basis. In Experiment 1, two subjects increased and decreased consumption along with their confederate. The third subject followed the confederate's pattern only after the confederate demonstrated heavy consumption. All three subjects varied consumption with the confederate during Experiment 2, performed later on the same day. These results suggest that alcoholics' alcohol consumption can be modified by the social influences of modeling. The implications of this finding for the loss of control hypothesis and alcoholism treatment maintenance were discussed.     

The persuasive “power” of stigma?

We predicted that able-bodied individuals and White Americans would have a difficult time saying no to persuasive appeals offered by disabled individuals and Black Americans, due to their desire to make such interactions proceed smoothly. In two experiments, we show that members of stigmatized groups have a peculiar kind of persuasive “power” in face-to-face interactions with non-stigmatized individuals. In Experiment 1, wheelchair-bound confederates were more effective in publicly soliciting donations to a range of charities than confederates seated in a regular chair. In Experiment 2, Whites changed their private attitudes more following face-to-face appeals from Black than White confederates, an effect mediated by their increased efforts to appear agreeable by nodding and expressing agreement. This difference was eliminated when impression management concerns were minimized – when participants viewed the appeals on video.     

Cooperative problem solving by tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella): spontaneous division of labor, communication, and reciprocal altruism

Using an experimentally induced cooperation task, the authors investigated whether tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) share the following 3 characteristics of cooperation with humans: division of labor, communication, and reciprocal altruism. In Experiment 1, the authors trained individual monkeys to perform the necessary sequence of actions for rewards and tested them in pairs to assess whether they could solve the task by spontaneously dividing the sequence of actions. All pairs solved this task. In Experiment 2, monkeys worked in the cooperation task and a task requiring no partner help. They looked at the partner significantly longer in the former task than in the latter, but communicative intent could not be determined. In Experiment 3, only 1 of 2 participants obtained a reward on each trial. Monkeys maintained cooperation when their roles were reversed on alternate trials. Their cooperative performances demonstrated division of labor; results suggest task-related communication and reciprocal altruism.     

Analyzing nonverbal listener responses using parallel recordings of multiple listeners

In this paper, we study nonverbal listener responses on a corpus with multiple parallel recorded listeners. These listeners were meant to believe that they were the sole listener, while in fact there were three persons listening to the same speaker. The speaker could only see one of the listeners. We analyze the impact of the particular setup of the corpus on the behavior and perception of the two types of listeners: the listeners that could be seen by the speaker and the listeners that could not be seen. Furthermore, we compare the nonverbal listening behaviors of these three listeners to each other with regard to timing and form. We correlate these behaviors with behaviors of the speaker, like pauses and whether the speaker is looking at the listeners or not.     

Analyzing nonverbal listener responses using parallel recordings of multiple listeners

In this paper, we study nonverbal listener responses on a corpus with multiple parallel recorded listeners. These listeners were meant to believe that they were the sole listener, while in fact there were three persons listening to the same speaker. The speaker could only see one of the listeners. We analyze the impact of the particular setup of the corpus on the behavior and perception of the two types of listeners: the listeners that could be seen by the speaker and the listeners that could not be seen. Furthermore, we compare the nonverbal listening behaviors of these three listeners to each other with regard to timing and form. We correlate these behaviors with behaviors of the speaker, like pauses and whether the speaker is looking at the listeners or not.     

Perception and presupposition in real-time language comprehension: insights from anticipatory processing

Recent studies have shown that listeners use verbs and other predicate terms to anticipate reference to semantic entities during real-time language comprehension. This process involves evaluating the denoted action against relevant properties of potential referents. The current study explored whether action-relevant properties are readily available to comprehension systems as a result of the embodied nature of linguistic and conceptual representations. In three experiments, eye movements were monitored as listeners followed instructions to move depicted objects on a computer screen. Critical instructions contained the verb return (e.g., Now return the block to area 3), which presupposes the previous displacement of its complement object--a property that is not reflected in perceptible or stable characteristics of objects. Experiment 1 demonstrated that predictions for previously displaced objects are generated upon hearing return, ruling out the possibility that anticipatory effects draw directly on static affordances in perceptual symbols. Experiment 2 used a referential communication task to evaluate how communicative relevance constrains the use of perceptually derived information. Results showed that listeners anticipate previously displaced objects as candidates upon hearing return only when their displacement was known to the speaker. Experiment 3 showed that the outcome of the original act of displacement further modulates referential predictions. The results show that the use of perceptually grounded information in language interpretation is subject to communicative constraints, even when language denotes physical actions performed on concrete objects.     

Exploring the Process of Inference Generation in Sarcasm: A Review of Normal and Clinical Studies

This article evaluates two theoretical accounts of how sarcasm is understood; the traditional model, which asserts that listeners derive a counterfactual inference from the sarcastic comment, and relevance theory, which asserts that listeners recognize sarcasm as a scornful echo of a previous assertion. Evidence from normal speakers provides only partial support for both theories. Evidence from brain-injured populations suggests that aspects of the pragmatic process can be arrested in ways not predicted by either theory. It is concluded that sarcasm is more effortful to process than nonsarcastic comments and that inferences about the facts of the situation and the mental state of the speaker (e.g., attitudes, knowledge, and intentions) are important to comprehending sarcasm. It is questioned whether inferences about mental state are relatively more difficult for brain-injured subjects and, if so, whether this is a continuum of difficulty or reflects reliance upon different cognitive processes.