title: Perspective-taking behavior as the probabilistic weighing of multiple domains.
abstract: Our starting point is the apparently-contradictory results in the psycholinguistic literature regarding whether, when interpreting a definite referring expressions, listeners process relative to the common ground from the earliest moments of processing. We propose that referring expressions are not interpreted relative solely to the common ground or solely to one's Private (or egocentric) knowledge, but rather reflect the simultaneous integration of the two perspectives. We implement this proposal in a Bayesian model of reference resolution, focusing on the model's predictions for two prior studies: Keysar, Barr, Balin, and Brauner (2000) and Heller, Grodner and Tanenhaus (2008). We test the model's predictions in a visual-world eye-tracking experiment, demonstrating that the original results cannot simply be attributed to different perspective-taking strategies, and showing how they can arise from the same perspective-taking behavior.
authors.affiliation: University of Toronto, Canada. Electronic address: daphna.heller@utoronto.ca.
authors.forename: Daphna
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Heller
authors.affiliation: Nuance Inc., Canada.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Parisien
authors.affiliation: University of Toronto, Canada.
authors.forename: Suzanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stevenson
mesh_terms: D001499:Bayes Theorem; D003142:Communication; D032882:Comprehension; D005133:Eye Movements; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D011578:Psycholinguistics
keywords: Bayesian modeling; Common ground; Definites; Eye-tracking; Perspective taking; Pragmatics; Reference