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The Strategic Use of Noise in Pragmatic Reasoning
Author(s) -
Bergen Leon,
Goodman Noah D.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
topics in cognitive science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.191
H-Index - 56
eISSN - 1756-8765
pISSN - 1756-8757
DOI - 10.1111/tops.12144
Subject(s) - computer science , pragmatics , noise (video) , probabilistic logic , channel (broadcasting) , sentence , speech recognition , extension (predicate logic) , emphasis (telecommunications) , word (group theory) , natural language , natural (archaeology) , artificial intelligence , natural language processing , linguistics , telecommunications , image (mathematics) , programming language , archaeology , history , philosophy
We combine two recent probabilistic approaches to natural language understanding, exploring the formal pragmatics of communication on a noisy channel. We first extend a model of rational communication between a speaker and listener, to allow for the possibility that messages are corrupted by noise. In this model, common knowledge of a noisy channel leads to the use and correct understanding of sentence fragments. A further extension of the model, which allows the speaker to intentionally reduce the noise rate on a word, is used to model prosodic emphasis. We show that the model derives several well‐known changes in meaning associated with prosodic emphasis. Our results show that nominal amounts of actual noise can be leveraged for communicative purposes.