Would a blue kite by any other name be just as blue? Effects of descriptive choices on subsequent referential behavior

• How does reference to one object affect subsequent reference to other objects?
• Objects contrasted in both size and color, which differ in context-sensitivity.
• Descriptions with size adjectives showed greater context-sensitivity.
• Priming of linguistic forms provides an insufficient account of the results.
• Instead, forms are mapped onto a representation of entities in a discourse model.

Using objects that contrast along multiple dimensions, we examined how the earlier description of an object using one dimension (size/color) influences reference to as-yet unmentioned objects, and how this depends on whether the two objects contrast with each other (i.e., whether they belong to the same nominal category). The dimensions of size and color were used because of their different sensitivity, with size adjectives being more closely tied to the presence of a contrasting object from the same category in the situational context. Experiment 1 elicited speakers’ descriptions for an object following an earlier description of another object, and Experiment 2 investigated the real-time comprehension of the second description in a two-utterance sequence. Although the priming of linguistic forms may play a role in explaining some of the observed referential patterns, the full set of data suggests that precedence effects in referential descriptions are best explained in terms of a representation that maps those forms onto a mental representation of entities, namely, a discourse model that encodes relationships between entities. The results also highlight how color and size adjectives are processed differently from the earliest moments in comprehension.