Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Vogels, Jorrig
• Krahmer, Emiel
• Maes, Alfons

Titel

How Cognitive Load Influences Speakers' Choice of Referring Expressions

Ist Teil von

• Cognitive science, 2015-08, Vol.39 (6), p.1396-1418

Ort / Verlag

United States: Wiley Subscription Services, Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2015

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• We report on two experiments investigating the effect of an increased cognitive load for speakers on the choice of referring expressions. Speakers produced story continuations to addressees, in which they referred to characters that were either salient or non‐salient in the discourse. In Experiment 1, referents that were salient for the speaker were non‐salient for the addressee, and vice versa. In Experiment 2, all discourse information was shared between speaker and addressee. Cognitive load was manipulated by the presence or absence of a secondary task for the speaker. The results show that speakers under load are more likely to produce pronouns, at least when referring to less salient referents. We take this finding as evidence that speakers under load have more difficulties taking discourse salience into account, resulting in the use of expressions that are more economical for themselves.