Meaning in Context

典型的语言话语所传达的信息的很大一部分并不直接编码在单词中，而是通过关于话语如何与语境中已经存在的信息相关的推理而被添加到构成单词和它们的发音方式的单词中。语言的这一特点会导致歧义、含糊和其他类型的“解释不确定性”，通常被视为一种设计缺陷，必须从严谨的话语中根除。然而，在实践中，人类非常善于在正确的语境中得出话语的正确含义。这个研究项目的目的是通过研究主要致力于语言的认知系统如何与更普遍的认知系统在在线意义构建中涉及代表关于世界的知识的接口，来研究这一过程到底是如何实现的。肯尼迪博士和他的同事进行的研究将使用实验技术来识别和比较两种语境相关意义的加工特征。第一种变化主要基于语言系统的特点，涉及对内容规定不足的语言表达(如代词)的使用。第二种是建立在对世界和交际本质的更一般知识的基础上，并涉及说话人在实现交际目的时使用特定表达而不是其他表达的意图的推理。这项研究中采用的主要实验方法被称为视觉世界范式，在这种范式中，实验受试者在遵循口头指令操纵显示器中的物体时，眼球运动被监测。针对显示器中的对象的眼动精确地时间锁定到关于到达语音信号的那些对象的信息，因此提供了对精确到毫秒粒度的意义的动态构建的洞察。这项跨学科的研究将加深我们对听者如何利用语境和语言线索来构建意义的理解，并为其他领域的研究人员开发促进语言交际的工具和技术提供资源。

A significant portion of the information conveyed by a typical linguistic utterance is not directly encoded in the words and that comprise it and the way they are articulated, but is rather "added on" via reasoning about how the utterance relates to information that is already present in the context. This feature of language gives rise to ambiguity, vagueness, and other kinds of "interpretive uncertainty", and has often been viewed as a design flaw that must be eradicated from rigorous discourse. In practice, however, humans are exceptionally good at arriving at the right meanings of utterances in the right contexts. The goal of this research project is to investigate exactly how this is accomplished, by examining how the cognitive systems devoted primarily to language interface with more general cognitive systems involved in representing knowledge about the world in the online construction of meaning.The research conducted by Dr. Kennedy and his colleagues will use experimental techniques to identify and compare the processing signatures of two varieties of context-dependent meaning. The first variety is based primarily in features of the linguistic system, and involves the use of linguistic expressions that are underspecified for content (such as pronouns). The second builds on more general knowledge of the world and the nature of communication, and involves reasoning about speakers' intentions in using particular expressions as opposed to others in a context to achieve a communicative goal. The main experimental method to be employed in the research is known as the Visual World Paradigm, in which experimental subjects' eye-movements are monitored as they follow spoken instructions to manipulate objects in a display. Eye-movements directed at objects in the display are precisely time-locked to information about those objects arriving in the speech signal, and so provide insight on the dynamic construction of meaning down to a granularity of milliseconds. This interdisciplinary research will deepen our understanding of how listeners use both contextual and linguistic clues to build up meanings, and provide resources for researchers in other fields developing tools and techniques for facilitating linguistic communication.