Tracking Colisteners’ Knowledge States During Language Comprehension
When we receive information in the presence of other people, are we sensitive to what they do or do not understand? In two event-related-potential experiments, participants read implausible sentences (e.g., “The girl had a little beak”) in contexts that rendered them plausible (e.g., “The girl dress...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
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SAGE Publications
2019
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123090 |
| _version_ | 1826216794999750656 |
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| author | Jouravlev, Olessia Schwartz, Rachael Ayyash, Dima Mineroff, Zachary A Gibson, Edward A Fedorenko, Evelina G |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Jouravlev, Olessia Schwartz, Rachael Ayyash, Dima Mineroff, Zachary A Gibson, Edward A Fedorenko, Evelina G |
| author_sort | Jouravlev, Olessia |
| collection | MIT |
| description | When we receive information in the presence of other people, are we sensitive to what they do or do not understand? In two event-related-potential experiments, participants read implausible sentences (e.g., “The girl had a little beak”) in contexts that rendered them plausible (e.g., “The girl dressed up as a canary for Halloween”). No semantic-processing difficulty (no N400 effect) ensued when they read the sentences while alone in the room. However, when a confederate was present who did not receive the contexts so that the critical sentences were implausible for him or her, participants exhibited processing difficulty: the social-N400 effect. This effect was obtained when participants were instructed to adopt the confederate’s perspective—and critically, even without such instructions—but not when performing a demanding comprehension task. Thus, unless mental resources are limited, comprehenders engage in modeling the minds not only of those individuals with whom they directly interact but also of those individuals who are merely present during the linguistic exchange. Keywords: communication; perspective taking; joint actions; social cognition; ERPs; N400; social N400; open data; open materials |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:53:33Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/123090 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:53:33Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| publisher | SAGE Publications |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1230902022-10-03T08:59:37Z Tracking Colisteners’ Knowledge States During Language Comprehension Jouravlev, Olessia Schwartz, Rachael Ayyash, Dima Mineroff, Zachary A Gibson, Edward A Fedorenko, Evelina G Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT When we receive information in the presence of other people, are we sensitive to what they do or do not understand? In two event-related-potential experiments, participants read implausible sentences (e.g., “The girl had a little beak”) in contexts that rendered them plausible (e.g., “The girl dressed up as a canary for Halloween”). No semantic-processing difficulty (no N400 effect) ensued when they read the sentences while alone in the room. However, when a confederate was present who did not receive the contexts so that the critical sentences were implausible for him or her, participants exhibited processing difficulty: the social-N400 effect. This effect was obtained when participants were instructed to adopt the confederate’s perspective—and critically, even without such instructions—but not when performing a demanding comprehension task. Thus, unless mental resources are limited, comprehenders engage in modeling the minds not only of those individuals with whom they directly interact but also of those individuals who are merely present during the linguistic exchange. Keywords: communication; perspective taking; joint actions; social cognition; ERPs; N400; social N400; open data; open materials National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U.S.) (Grant HD057522) National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U.S.) (Grant DC016607) National Science Foundation (Award 1534318) 2019-11-25T21:04:31Z 2019-11-25T21:04:31Z 2018-11 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0956-7976 1467-9280 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123090 Jouraviev, Olessia et al. "Tracking Colisteners’ Knowledge States During Language Comprehension ." Psychological Science 30, 1 (2019): 3-19 © 2018 The Authors http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797618807674 Psychological Science Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf SAGE Publications Prof. Gibson via Courtney Crummett |
| spellingShingle | Jouravlev, Olessia Schwartz, Rachael Ayyash, Dima Mineroff, Zachary A Gibson, Edward A Fedorenko, Evelina G Tracking Colisteners’ Knowledge States During Language Comprehension |
| title | Tracking Colisteners’ Knowledge States During Language Comprehension |
| title_full | Tracking Colisteners’ Knowledge States During Language Comprehension |
| title_fullStr | Tracking Colisteners’ Knowledge States During Language Comprehension |
| title_full_unstemmed | Tracking Colisteners’ Knowledge States During Language Comprehension |
| title_short | Tracking Colisteners’ Knowledge States During Language Comprehension |
| title_sort | tracking colisteners knowledge states during language comprehension |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123090 |
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