Less Is More: A Minimalist Account of Joint Action in Communication

Hadas Shintel, Boaz Keysar

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

80 Scopus citations

Abstract

Language use can be viewed as a form of joint activity that requires the coordination of meaning between individuals. Because the linguistic signal is notoriously ambiguous, interlocutors need to draw upon additional sources of information to resolve ambiguity and achieve shared understanding. One way individuals can achieve coordination is by using inferences about the interlocutor's intentions and mental states to adapt their behavior. However, such an inferential process can be demanding in terms of both time and cognitive resources. Here, we suggest that interaction provides interlocutors with many cues that can support coordination of meaning, even when they are neither produced intentionally for that purpose nor interpreted as signaling speakers' intention. In many circumstances, interlocutors can take advantage of these cues to adapt their behavior in ways that promote coordination, bypassing the need to resort to deliberative inferential processes.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)260-273
Number of pages14
JournalTopics in Cognitive Science
Volume1
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2009

Keywords

  • Audience design
  • Common ground
  • Interlocutor-specific effects
  • Memory associations
  • Referential communication

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Less Is More: A Minimalist Account of Joint Action in Communication'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this