The influence of cognitive load on repeated references in speech and gesture
Ingrid Masson‐Carro, Martijn B. Goudbeek, Emiel Krahmer · Research portal (Tilburg University) · 2013
Shared common ground between interaction partners has been found to lead to reduction in repeated references to a target entity, both in speech and gesture. It has been shown, however, that increasing the cognitive load of speakers has the potential to affect how speakers and addressees adapt to one another in dialogue. This paper reports on an experiment in which native speakers of Dutch engaged in a directormatcher task where repeated references were elicited, and a time constraint was imposed in order to increase the load of speakers. Our results show that cognitive load was not an impediment to the reduction process, although it did have an effect on the overall task performance, suggesting that reduction results from rather automatic processes.