Published: 2017-09-21
ISBN: 978-91-7685-423-5
ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)
When objects or people are described repeatedly in conversation, the repeated references tend to be reduced variants of initial references. This can be seen both in speech, and in gesture. Previous studies focused on successful repeated references, produced in contexts of common ground. A question is whether repeated references are also reduced in contexts where there is less, or no common ground, for example during communicative problems. In particular, the present study asks whether gestures which are produced in repeated references following nega-tive feedback become more informative for the addressee. Participants viewed silent video clips, each showing one gesture, taken either from object descriptions before any feedback was given, or from object descriptions given after (repeated) negative feedback. With each video clip participants were shown two objects. The task was to decide which of the two objects was the target associated with the gesture they were shown. Results showed that participants were better at this task when presented with gestures produced following (repeated) negative feed-back. This leads us to conclude, firstly, that after having received negative feedback, gestures are not reduced, but become more informative, and secondly, that this might be done with the addressee in mind.
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