The generation of referring expressions is a central topic in computational linguistics. Natural referring expressions – both definite references like ‘the baseball cap’ and pronouns like ‘it’ – are dependent on discourse context. We examine the practical implications of context-dependent referring expression generation for the design of spoken systems. Currently, not all spoken systems have the goal of generating natural referring expressions. Many researchers believe that the context-dependency of natural referring expressions actually makes systems less usable. Using the dual-task paradigm, we demonstrate that generating natural referring expressions that are dependent on discourse context reduces cognitive load. Somewhat surprisingly, we also demonstrate that practice does not improve cognitive load in systems that generate consistent (context-independent) referring expressions. We discuss practical implications for spoken systems as well as other areas of referring expression generation.

中文翻译：

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自然话语参考生成减少了口语系统中的认知负荷

指称表达式的生成是计算语言学的中心话题。自然的指称表达——无论是像“棒球帽”这样的明确指称和像“它”这样的代词——都依赖于语境。我们研究了上下文相关的参考表达生成对设计的实际意义口语系统. 目前，并非所有的口语系统都以生成自然的指称表达为目标。许多研究人员认为，自然指称表达的上下文相关性实际上使系统较少的可用。使用双任务范式，我们证明生成依赖于语境的自然指称表达可以减少认知负荷。有点令人惊讶的是，我们还证明了在生成一致（与上下文无关的）指称表达的系统中，实践并没有改善认知负荷。我们讨论了口语系统的实际意义以及其他参考表达生成领域。