Overhearing Single and Multiple Perspectives

Abstract

In 2 spontaneous speech experiments, this study found that multiple perspectives improved overhearers' abilities to select abstract shapes from an array, although single-perspective descriptions were more detailed. Prior findings that overhearers performed better when listening in on dialogues (Fox Tree, 1999 Fox Tree, J. E. 1999. Listening in on monologues and dialogues. Discourse Processes, 27: 35–53. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) can best be understood as an advantage of the multiple-perspective descriptions that arise out of the entrainment process. Results support the collaborative theory of language use and suggest that vicarious learners would do better listening in on talk containing multiple perspectives than talk containing a single perspective.