Meaning in Context

由典型的语言话语传达的信息的很大一部分不是直接编码在单词中，并且包括它和它们的表达方式，而是通过推理话语如何与上下文中已经存在的信息相关而“添加”。语言的这一特征导致了歧义、不确定性和其他类型的“解释不确定性”，并且经常被视为必须从严格的话语中根除的设计缺陷。然而，在实践中，人类非常善于在正确的语境中得出正确的话语含义。这个研究项目的目标是调查这是如何实现的，通过研究主要用于语言的认知系统如何与更一般的认知系统进行接口，这些认知系统涉及在在线意义构建中表示关于世界的知识。肯尼迪博士及其同事进行的研究将使用实验技术来识别和比较两种语境的处理特征-依赖的意义第一种类型主要基于语言系统的特征，并涉及对内容未充分指定的语言表达（如代词）的使用。第二种是建立在对世界和交际性质的更一般的知识基础上的，涉及对说话者在使用特定表达时的意图进行推理，而不是在上下文中使用其他表达来实现交际目标。研究中采用的主要实验方法被称为视觉世界范式，其中实验对象的眼球运动被监测，因为他们遵循口头指令来操纵显示器中的对象。针对显示器中的对象的眼球运动被精确地时间锁定到关于到达语音信号中的那些对象的信息，并且因此提供了对意义的动态构建的洞察，其粒度低至毫秒。这种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建立意义的理解，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.