Language evolution seminar

Speaker: Si On Yoon (University of Iowa)

Title: Mechanisms of conversation: Audience design and memory

Abstract: Communicating with others is one of the most fundamental social activities of everyday life. Even though communication plays an undeniably important role in our lives, the mechanisms of language processing used in conversation are largely unexplored due to the difficulties in examining natural conversational language with traditional psycholinguistic approaches. In a newly developed experimental paradigm to study conversation in the lab, I have been able to examine how speakers tailor language during multiparty conversation (one speaker and two listeners). I have also expanded this paradigm to further look at how speakers balance the needs of the different partners for successful communication in conversations with up to 7 people. In another line of work, to examine the nature of the memory representations that are built and used during natural communication, I test individuals with hippocampal amnesia and severe memory impairment, as well as healthy older adults. These results demonstrate the extent to which tailoring language to one’s audience requires intact hippocampal-dependent memory systems. Across these lines of inquiry, my research is uncovering critical aspects of the cognitive mechanisms that afford, not just language production and comprehension, but more specifically communication through natural conversation.

Contact

Seminars are organised by the Centre for Language Evolution

Henry Conklin

Centre for Language Evolution