Perspective-Taking in Conversation

面对面的交谈在儿童的语言习得和成人的交流中起着关键作用，在语言的演变过程中也起着关键作用。然而，令人惊讶的是，人们对影响对话中语言使用的认知机制知之甚少。谈话的一个特点是，我们说什么和怎么说，取决于我们对谈话对象的知识和信仰的见解。有时这些洞见是正确的，有时却大错特错，有时这些洞见还没有形成。该研究项目将探索如何形成对他人的见解，如何使用这些见解，以及它们如何可能失败。一系列实验将使用眼球追踪技术来研究这些在自然对话中每时每刻发生的过程。这项工作借鉴了心理语言学、发展心理学和社会心理学的最新进展。这个项目将提供对语言的一个鲜为人知但却核心的组成部分的见解，即欣赏他人的观点。它具有潜在的多种含义，包括通过在师生对子中采用换位思考来改善教育，以及通过在多维图形的几何推理中使用换位思考来改善数学教育。

Face-to-face conversation plays a key role in children's language acquisition and adult communication, and in the evolution of languages over time. However, surprisingly little is known about the cognitive mechanisms that affect language use in conversation. One feature of conversation is that what we say and how we say it depends on our insights into the knowledge and beliefs of the people we talk to. Sometimes these insights are correct, sometimes they fail dramatically, and other times the insights are still unformed. This research project will explore how insights into others are formed, how these insights are used, and how they may fail. A series of experiments will use eye-tracking technology to study these processes on a moment-by-moment basis as they occur in natural conversation. The work draws from recent advances in psycholinguistics, developmental psychology, and social psychology.This project will provide insights into a poorly understood but core component of language, that is, appreciating the perspectives of others. It has potentially diverse implications, including improving education through perspective-taking in teacher-student dyads and in math education through the use of perspective-taking in reasoning about the geometry of multi-dimensional figures.