We investigated how two cues to contrast—beat gesture and contrastive pitch accenting—affect comprehenders' cognitive load during processing of spoken referring expressions. In two visual‐world experiments, we orthogonally manipulated the presence of these cues and their felicity, or fit, with the local (sentence‐level) referential context in critical referring expressions while comprehenders' task‐evoked pupillary responses (TEPRs) were examined. In Experiment 1, beat gesture and contrastive accenting always matched the referential context of filler referring expressions and were therefore relatively felicitous on the global (experiment) level, whereas in Experiment 2, beat gesture and contrastive accenting never fit the referential context of filler referring expressions and were therefore infelicitous on the global level. The results revealed that both beat gesture and contrastive accenting increased comprehenders' cognitive load. For beat gesture, this increase in cognitive load was driven by both local and global infelicity. For contrastive accenting, this increase in cognitive load was unaffected when cues were globally felicitous but exacerbated when cues were globally infelicitous. Together, these results suggest that comprehenders' cognitive resources are taxed by processing infelicitous use of beat gesture and contrastive accenting to convey contrast on both the local and global levels.

中文翻译：

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旁观者眼中的对比：不恰当的节拍手势会增加在线口语理解过程中的认知负荷

我们研究了两种对比线索——节拍手势和对比音高重音——如何影响理解者在处理口语指称表达过程中的认知负荷。在两个视觉世界实验中，我们在检查理解者的任务诱发瞳孔反应 (TEPR) 的同时，正交地操纵了这些线索的存在及其是否恰当，以及批判性指称表达中的局部（句子级）指称上下文。在实验 1 中，节拍手势和对比重音始终与填充指称表达式的指称上下文相匹配，因此在全局（实验）级别上相对正确，而在实验 2 中，节拍手势和对比重音从不适合填充指称表达式的指称上下文因此在全球范围内是不合适的。结果表明，节拍手势和对比重音都增加了理解者的认知负荷。对于节拍手势，这种认知负荷的增加是由局部和全局的不恰当驱动的。对于对比重音，这种认知负荷的增加在提示全局正确时不受影响，但当提示全局不正确时会加剧。总之，这些结果表明，理解者的认知资源通过处理不恰当地使用节拍手势和对比重音来传达本地和全球层面的对比而受到负担。这种认知负荷的增加在提示全局正确时不受影响，但当提示全局不正确时会加剧。总之，这些结果表明，理解者的认知资源通过处理不恰当地使用节拍手势和对比重音来传达本地和全球层面的对比而受到负担。这种认知负荷的增加在提示全局正确时不受影响，但当提示全局不正确时会加剧。总之，这些结果表明，理解者的认知资源通过处理不恰当地使用节拍手势和对比重音来传达本地和全球层面的对比而受到负担。