Language Use and Theory of Mind

These flashcards cover key vocabulary and concepts related to language use and theories of mind as discussed in the lecture.

Common Ground

Information shared by people who engage in a conversation.

Adjacency Pair

An inference from the listener followed by nodding from the speaker, confirming comprehension.

Audience Design

Constructing utterances to suit the audience's knowledge.

Lexicon

The set of words and expressions used in a language.

Syntax

Grammatical rules for arranging words and expressions in sentences.

Situation Models

Mental representations of an event or situation constructed during comprehension.

Priming

Activation of certain thoughts or feelings that lead to easier recall of related concepts.

Imitation

The act of executing the same action as another person.

Linguistic Intergroup Bias

The tendency to describe positive actions of ingroup members abstractly and negative actions of outgroup members less abstractly.

Social Brain Hypothesis

The theory that humans have evolved to maintain larger ingroups.

Semanticity

The extent to which words meaningfully represent ideas, events, and objects.

Generativity

The ability to produce an infinite number of sentences using a limited set of rules or words.

Displacement

The ability of language to refer to things not present.

Theory of Mind

The human capacity to understand the minds of others, including desires, beliefs, and intentions.

Level 1 of Theory of Mind

Identifying agents, their goals, and their intentionality.

Joint Attention

The shared focus of two individuals on an object.

Simulation

Using one's own mental states as a model to understand others' mental states.

Explicit Mental State Inference

The ability to separate one’s values from another person’s values in understanding behavior.

False-Belief Test

An experimental procedure to assess understanding that another person can have a belief that contradicts reality.