Effects of Shared Attention on joint language production across processing stages

ABSTRACT

Shared attention across individuals is a crucial component of joint activities, modulating how we perceive relevant information. In this study, we explored shared attention in language production and memory across separate representation levels. In a shared go/no-go task, pairs of participants responded to objects displayed on a screen: One participant reacted according to the animacy of the object (semantic task), while her partner reacted to the first letter/phoneme (phoneme-monitoring task). Objects could require a response from either one participant, both participants or nobody. Only participants assigned to the phoneme-monitoring task were faster at responding to the joint than to alone trials. However, results from a memory recall test showed that for both partners recall was more accurate for those items to which the partner responded and for jointly responded items. Overall, our findings suggest that partners co-represent each other’s language features even when they do not engage in the same task.

KEYWORDS:

• Shared attention
• co-representation
• joint memory effect
• collective-prioritisation effect
• language production

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Noel Nguyen for his advices and his support. We are also grateful to Xavier Alario for his supervision during the first steps of the project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study has received financial support from the Marie Curie Actions (FP7-PEOPLE 2014–2016 under REA agreement n°623845), from the Laboratoire Parole et Langage and from Excellence Initiative of Aix-Marseille University – A*MIDEX through the Institute of Language, Communication and the Brain. G.C. was supported by the Ecole Doctorale 356 of Aix-Marseille University. C.B. was supported by the Ramon y Cajal research program (RYC2018-026174-I). E.R. has benefited from support from the French government, managed by the French National Agency for Research (ANR) through a research grant (ANR-18-CE28-0013). K.S. was supported by a research grant of the ANR (ANR-18-FRAL-0013-01).