How beliefs about a partner’s goals affect referring in goal-discrepant conversations

This study examines how interlocutors' beliefs about each other's goals (partner-goal beliefs) affect conversational references. Pairs of participants whose mismatched conversational goals required getting information at a more or less specific level discussed abstract shapes. Pairs were either informed of the goal difference, misinformed that goals were the same, or noninformed about the goal difference. Partner-goal beliefs affected how participants collaborated on references: Speakers tailored their descriptions to fit their beliefs about addressees' goals, and addressees' verbal feedback was affected by speakers' descriptions. Misinformed and noninformed pairs never differed reliably in their language use, but speakers in these pairs described shapes, and their addressees responded to their descriptions, differently than informed pairs. Afterward, informed participants recognized the shapes more or less accurately depending on their individual goal, whereas in the misinformed and noninformed pairs, participants' recognition accuracy did not differ according to their individual goals. The pattern of results suggests that noninformed participants assumed their own goal was shared by their partner. Analyses of conversations and subjective questionnaires indicate that misinformed and noninformed pairs (a) overlooked clues that may have signaled the goal discrepancy, (b) made conversational inferences their partners did not intend, and (c) made misattributions about their partners.