Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T00:48:34.585Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Clarity under cognitive constraint: Can a simple directive encourage busy speakers to avoid ambiguity?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2019

COURTNEY A. KURINEC Open the ORCID record for COURTNEY A. KURINEC [Opens in a new window] ,
ASHLEIGH V. T. WISE ,
CHRISTINA A. CAVAZOS ,
ELYSSE M. REYES  and
CHARLES A. WEAVER III
COURTNEY A. KURINEC*
Affiliation:
Baylor University
ASHLEIGH V. T. WISE
Affiliation:
Baylor University
CHRISTINA A. CAVAZOS
Affiliation:
Baylor University
ELYSSE M. REYES
Affiliation:
Baylor University
CHARLES A. WEAVER III
Affiliation:
Baylor University
*
†Address for correspondence: Courtney A. Kurinec, Department of Psychology, Washington State University, PO Box 644820, Johnson Tower 233, Pullman, WA 99164. Tel: 509-335-5956. Fax: 509-335-5043. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Failing to communicate a message in everyday settings can be a frustrating experience. However, miscommunication can lead to disaster in high-stakes situations. Yet in these contexts, under pressure to perform efficiently, speakers may also find themselves with limited resources to devote to message clarity. To understand how cognitive constraint affects communication and explore a possible low-cost solution, we investigated a method for moderating ambiguity production in the face of competing attentional demands: taking the perspective of the listener. Over two experiments, speakers labeled images (Experiment 1) or provided instructions (Experiment 2) to listeners in a non-interactive communication task. In both experiments, speakers were randomly assigned to cognitive constraint and perspective-taking conditions, such that some speakers were under higher cognitive constraint and some speakers received a simple perspective-taking directive. We replicated previous findings that additional cognitive constraint impairs speakers’ ability to avoid ambiguity. Additionally, we found that a simple directive can promote speaker clarity when labeling images, but not when providing instructions. These results suggest that a simple directive is likely insufficient to ensure speaker clarity in all cases.

Keywords

ambiguitycognitive loadperspective-takingcommunication
Type
Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 621 - 644
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Courtney A. Kurinec is now at the Department of Psychology, Washington State University. Charles A. Weaver III, Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Baylor University. Ashleigh V. T. Wise is now at the Department of Psychology, University of Kansas; Christina A. Cavazos, and Elysse M. Reyes are no longer at Baylor University. The authors declare that there are no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this paper. We would like to thank our team of research assistants, without whose help this project would not have been possible. We would also like to thank the reviewers for critically reading this manuscript and providing substantive comments that strengthened the work.

References

references

Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B. & Walker, S. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software 67, 1–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bates, E., D’Amico, S., Jacobsen, T., Székely, A., Andonova, E., Devescovi, A. … Tzeng, O. (2003). Timed picture naming in seven languages. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 10(2), 344–380.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Batson, C. D., Early, S. & Salvarani, G. (1997). Perspective taking: imagining how another feels versus imagining how you would feel. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23(7), 751–758.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brysbaert, M. & New, B. (2009). Moving beyond Kučera and Francis: a critical evaluation of current word frequency norms and the introduction of a new and improved word frequency measure for American English. Behavior Research Methods 41(4), 977–990.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carrier, L. M., Cheever, N. A., Rosen, L. D., Benitez, S. & Chang, J. (2009). Multitasking across generations: multitasking choices and difficulty ratings in three generations of Americans. Computers in Human Behavior 25(2), 483–489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, H. H. & Carlson, T. B. (1981). Context for comprehension. In Long, J. & Baddeley, A. (eds), Attention and performance IX (pp. 313–330). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Cortese, M. J. & Fugett, A. (2004). Imageability ratings for 3,000 monosyllabic words. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers 36(3), 384–387.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davis, M. H., Conklin, L., Smith, A. & Luce, C. (1996). Effect of perspective taking on the cognitive representation of persons: a merging of self and other. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70(4), 713–726.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Epley, N., Keysar, B., Boven, L. V. & Gilovich, T. (2004). Perspective taking as egocentric anchoring and adjustment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 87(3), 327–339.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fay, N., Page, A. C. & Serfaty, C. (2010). Listeners influence speakers’ perceived communication effectiveness. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46(4), 689–692.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fay, N., Page, A. C., Serfaty, C., Tai, V. & Winkler, C. (2008). Speaker overestimation of communication effectiveness and fear of negative evaluation: being realistic is unrealistic. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 15(6), 1160–1165.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ferreira, V. S. & Cutting, J. C. (1997). Ninety-three pictures and 108 questions for the elicitation of homophones. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers 29(4), 619–635.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ferreira, V. S., Slevc, L. R. & Rogers, E. S. (2005). How do speakers avoid ambiguous linguistic expressions? Cognition 96(3), 263–284.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fox, J. & Weisberg, S. (2011). An R companion to applied regression (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Horton, W. S. & Keysar, B. (1996). When do speakers take into account common ground? Cognition 59(1), 91–117.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Isaacs, E. A. & Clark, H. H. (1987). References in conversation between experts and novices. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 116(1), 26–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalajian, D. (2002). Miscommunication that led to aviation disaster. Chicago Tribune. Available from <https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2002-04-21-0204210261-/story.html>.Google Scholar
Kempe, V., Rookes, M. & Swarbrigg, L. (2013). Speaker emotion can affect ambiguity production. Language and Cognitive Processes 28(10), 1579–1590.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keysar, B., Barr, D. J., Balin, J. A. & Brauner, J. S. (2000). Taking perspective in conversation: the role of mutual knowledge in comprehension. Psychological Science 11(1), 32–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keysar, B., Barr, D. J., Balin, J. A. & Paek, T. S. (1998). Definite reference and mutual knowledge: process models of common ground in comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language 39(1), 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keysar, B. & Henly, A. S. (2002). Speakers’ overestimation of their effectiveness. Psychological Science 13(3), 207–212.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kraljic, T. & Brennan, S. E. (2005). Prosodic disambiguation of syntactic structure: For the speaker or for the addressee? Cognitive Psychology 50(2), 194–231.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krauss, R. M. & Fussell, S. R. (1991). Perspective-taking in communication: representations of others’ knowledge in reference. Social Cognition 9(1), 2–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lin, S., Keysar, B. & Epley, N. (2010). Reflexively mindblind: using theory of mind to interpret behavior requires effortful attention. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46(3), 551–556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lockridge, C. B. & Brennan, S. E. (2002). Addressees’ needs influence speakers’ early syntactic choices. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 9(3), 550–557.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
R Core Team (2017). R: a language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Available from <https://www.R-project.org/>..>Google Scholar
Revelle, W. (2017). psych: procedures for personality and psychological research. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University. Available from <https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=psych> (Version = 1.7.5).Google Scholar
Roßnagel, C. (2000). Cognitive load and perspective-taking: applying the automatic-controlled distinction to verbal communication. European Journal of Social Psychology 30(3), 429–445.3.0.CO;2-V>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roßnagel, C. (2004). Lost in thought: cognitive load and the processing of addressees’ feedback in verbal communication. Experimental Psychology 51(3), 191–200.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
RStudio Team (2016). RStudio: integrated development for R. Boston, MA: RStudio, Inc. Available from <http://www.rstudio.com/>..>Google Scholar
Russ, M. & Crews, D. E. (2014). A survey of multitasking behaviors in organizations. International Journal of Human Resource Studies 4(1), 137–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singmann, H., Bolker, B., Westfall, J., Aust, F. & Ben-Shachar, M. S. (2019). afex: analysis of factorial experiments. R package version 0.25-1. Available from <https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=afex>.Google Scholar
Smith, P. (2014). How a tiny island runway became the site of the deadliest plane crash ever. Business Insider. Available from <https://www.businessinsider.com/deadliest-plane-crash-in-history-2014-3>.Google Scholar
Snodgrass, J. G. & Vanderwart, M. (1980). A standardized set of 260 pictures: norms for name agreement, image agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory 6(2), 174–215.Google ScholarPubMed
Traxler, M. J. & Gernsbacher, M. A. (1993). Improving written communication through perspective-taking. Language and Cognitive Processes 8(3), 311–334.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
US Department of State (2018). Language proficiency definitions. Available from <https://careers.state.gov/faq-items/language-proficiency-definitions/>..>Google Scholar
Van Heuven, W. J. B., Mandera, P., Keuleers, E. & Brysbaert, M. (2014). SUBTLEX-UK: a new and improved word frequency database for British English. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 67(6), 1176–1190.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vorauer, J. D. & Sasaki, S. J. (2014). Distinct effects of imagine-other versus imagine-self perspective-taking on prejudice reduction. Social Cognition 32(2), 130–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, V., Jescheniak, J. D. & Schriefers, H. (2010). On the flexibility of grammatical advance planning during sentence production: effects of cognitive load on multiple lexical access. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 36(2), 423–440.Google ScholarPubMed
Wardlow, L. (2013). Individual differences in speakers’ perspective taking: the roles of executive control and working memory. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 20(4), 766–772.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weick, K. E. (1990). The vulnerable system: an analysis of the Tenerife Air Disaster. Journal of Management 16(3), 571–593.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wickham, H. & Miller, E. (2019). haven: import and export ‘SPSS’, ‘Stata’ and ‘SAS’ files. R package version 2.1.0. Available from <https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=haven>.Google Scholar