Subjectivity in language processing: Linguistic and psychological aspects of perspective-taking

人们的观点、品味和态度因人而异，具有很强的主观性。有很多词都能反映主观态度，包括形容词，比如“好玩”、“吓人”和“不健康”。一个重要的问题是，这些主观词汇基于谁的观点或观点--谁的观点认为某事令人恐惧、有趣或不健康。辨别这些主观词汇反映的是谁的观点很重要。例如，假设一名医生认为某个人不健康，而没有接受过医疗培训的朋友却表达了同样的观点。然而，确定一个主观形容词与谁的观点相关联并不总是那么简单。这个词出现的句子类型会影响它的意思。如果有人说“情况很可怕”，说话者通常会被解读为判断什么是“可怕”，但如果有人问朋友“情况可怕吗？”然后，视角发生了变化，这位朋友对什么算得上可怕的看法也很重要。目前的项目旨在提高对人们如何理解主观词汇的理解，包括从一个人的角度转换到另一个人的角度，以及基于语言和基于社交的因素如何影响这一点。这项研究可能会为语言使用的理论以及在健康、法律和教育环境中改善沟通的干预措施的设计提供参考。对语言与个人观点/态度之间的关系的理解在处理由于态度分歧引起的社会紧张以及对非典型人群中的主观视角采取的调查中也可能是相关的。这项研究将有助于我们理解主观视角采取及其与语言的接口。本研究采用线上和线下两种实验方法，考察了主观语言表达理解的机制和表征。研究人员将调查不同类型的主观表达是否以及在多大程度上会在语言处理过程中引发视角转换，以及这是否受到自上而下的语境因素的影响。该项目还将衡量对视角敏感因素的解释在多大程度上受到其发生的语言背景的指导，以及在实时处理过程中如何激活视角持有者。目前心理语言学中关于视角采择的争论主要集中在客观情况上，即个体在他们所知道或能够直接观察到的东西上存在差异，而理论语言学中关于视角的争论大多集中在个体观点和态度之间的主观差异上。该项目的研究将拓宽透视加工工作的经验基础，并将进一步加深我们对人类如何处理视角敏感的语言材料的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

People's opinions, tastes and attitudes differ from person to person, and are highly subjective. There are many words that reflect subjective attitudes, including adjectives such as 'fun,' 'frightening' and 'unhealthy.' An important question is whose perspective or opinion these subjective words are anchored to--whose opinion it is that something is frightening, or fun, or unhealthy. Identifying whose opinion these kinds of subjective words reflect is important. For example, consider a physician deeming a certain individual to be unhealthy compared to a friend with no medical training conveying the same sentiment. However, identifying whose opinion a subjective adjective is anchored to is not always straightforward. The type of sentence in which the word occurs influences its meaning. If someone states 'The situation was frightening,' that speaker is often interpreted as the arbiter of what counts as 'frightening,' but if someone asks a friend 'Was the situation frightening?' then the perspective shifts and the friend's opinion of what counts as frightening also matters. The current project aims to improve understanding of how people understand subjective words, including shifts from one person's perspective to another's perspective, and how language-based and social-interaction-based factors influence this. This research may inform theories of language use, as well as the design of interventions to improve communication in contexts such as health, legal and educational settings. An understanding of the relation between language and people's personal opinions/attitudes may also be relevant when dealing with social tensions due to attitude divergence, as well as investigations of subjective perspective-taking in nontypical populations.This research will contribute to our understanding of subjective perspective-taking and its interfaces with language. The research uses both online and offline experimental methods to examine the mechanisms and representations involved in the interpretation of subjective linguistic expressions. The researchers will investigate whether and to what extent subjective expressions of different types trigger perspective-shifts during language processing, and whether this is modulated by top-down contextual factors. The project will also gauge the extent to which interpretation of perspective-sensitive elements is guided by the linguistic context in which they occur and how the perspective-holder is activated during real-time processing. Current debate in psycholinguistics regarding perspective-taking primarily focuses on objective situations where individuals differ in what they know or can observe directly, whereas much of the recent debate on perspective in theoretical linguistics has centered on subjective differences between individuals' opinions and attitudes. The studies in this project will broaden the empirical basis of work on perspectival processing and will further our understanding of how humans process perspective-sensitive linguistic material.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.