Taking perspective in conversation: The role of mutual knowledge in comprehension
Listeners also looked at objects the speaker could not see. Their search for referents was not restricted to mutually visible objects, suggesting a process of correcting interpretations using mutual knowledge.
Connection to this page
Check what each person can see and knows, rather than assuming that materials or circumstances obvious to you are also known to the other person.
Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
- Participants and methods
- Two experiments tracked eye movements while people followed instructions to move objects, examining whether objects visible to both parties and objects hidden from the speaker became candidate referents.
- Scope and limitations
- The experiments used constrained object arrangements and instructions, with eye movements indicating candidate interpretations. They do not mean people cannot use others' perspectives or that every conversation follows the same sequence of misunderstanding.
Boaz Keysar; Dale J. Barr; Jennifer A. Balin; Jason S. Brauner (2000). Taking perspective in conversation: The role of mutual knowledge in comprehension
Psychological Science, 11(1), 32–38
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9280.00211
