The Use of Modifiers and f0 in Remote Referential Communication with Human and Computer Partners

The present study investigates referring expressions in a remote interaction context with a human or computer partner (both simulated). Across these conditions, we compare the effect of competitor information being available to both partners (common ground) or only the speaker (privileged ground) on target item descriptions. We analyse the number of adjectival modifiers uttered and show that participants responded to the manipulation of information status in both partner conditions. In addition, we examine whether the information status also affects the prosodic realisation of the descriptions. No sufficient evidence was found for this. As expected, adjectives showed a slightly higher peak f0 when a competitor was present in the common ground than when there was no competitor. However, when analysing the overall f0 contour, there was no systematic difference between conditions.