The Computational Structure of Unintentional Meaning
This provides insight into communication malfunctions, but it is incremental as it builds on existing theories of pragmatics and Bayesian modeling.
The paper tackles the problem of how listeners interpret unintentional meaning in speech-acts, using a Bayesian model to show that meaning can significantly differ from speaker intent, as tested with human judgments on vignettes involving insults or faux pas.
Speech-acts can have literal meaning as well as pragmatic meaning, but these both involve consequences typically intended by a speaker. Speech-acts can also have unintentional meaning, in which what is conveyed goes above and beyond what was intended. Here, we present a Bayesian analysis of how, to a listener, the meaning of an utterance can significantly differ from a speaker's intended meaning. Our model emphasizes how comprehending the intentional and unintentional meaning of speech-acts requires listeners to engage in sophisticated model-based perspective-taking and reasoning about the history of the state of the world, each other's actions, and each other's observations. To test our model, we have human participants make judgments about vignettes where speakers make utterances that could be interpreted as intentional insults or unintentional faux pas. In elucidating the mechanics of speech-acts with unintentional meanings, our account provides insight into how communication both functions and malfunctions.