(7/7) We are incredibly proud of this paper—the first in our lab's new journey into semantic alignment! Massive kudos to Siham Abu-Ali and @tanya-philippova.bsky.social for their fantastic work. Check it out here: osf.io/preprints/ps...
(3/7). But what happens when your conversation partner produces highly incoherent responses? In a new preprint, led by the brilliant Siham Abu-Ali, we tested this across four experiments using a novel word association task, where dyads generate associations to shared cues.
(5/7) In another experiment, we made alignment even simpler: we repeated cues, and showed participants the associations their partner (who tended to repeat their own associations) previously reported for a given cue. Again, we found less motivation to align with atypical partners.
(6/7) Thus, semantic misalignment may reflect a socially motivated modulation of identity rather than a mere failure of coordination. This may shed light on mechanisms of interpersonal distancing, communication breakdowns in neurodivergence, and broader patterns of social polarization
Isaac Fradkin
🚨Preprint alert🚨 Research on discourse incoherence (e.g., in psychosis) usually focuses on patients' language, but what happens to people who interact with misaligned partners? Using a novel approach, we show evidence for reciprocity in semantic misalignment. 🧵👇
osf.io/preprints/ps...
(2/7). Conversations are usually about building common ground. We typically consider shared meaning to be the normative trajectory of linguistic interaction. More specifically, social interactions usually motivate us to produce conventional associations to align with others.
(4/7) Our results show a fascinating dynamic! One possible strategy to maximize alignment is to produce more typical associations. Whereas people produce more typical associations in interaction, *they do so less when interacting with an atypical or difficult-to-align-with partner*.
