Choice behavior in a referentially ambiguous task.

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Abstract
Studied the way a listener selects a speaker's referent object, when 2 or more objects in the environment appear to fit the speaker's description, as a particular instance of choice behavior. Results of previous studies suggest that the listener's choice process in such referentially ambiguous situations is a combination of probabilistic and deterministic processes. Speaker descriptions in these studies were limited to single-word cues. The generality of previous findings when listener choices are based on descriptions that are not restricted in length or type was tested. A series of 18 sets of 3 snowflakes each and 36 of their 54 (3 * 18) possible subsets of 2 snowflakes was presented to 115 listener Ss. A paragraph description previously given by other speaker Ss accompanied each set and was used by listener Ss to identify the referent. Results are similar to those found in previous work. The possibility is discussed that certain individual differences and/or unavoidable memory effects make the process appear more deterministic than in actuality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

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