Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The present study examines language patterns in theformation of common ground in collaborative action tasks.Based on the classic Clark and Wilkes-Gibbs’ (1986)paradigm for object descriptions, we examined dialoguebetween pairs of participants as they work cooperatively tomaneuver a remote control car following both manner andpath instructions. Overall, we replicated Clark andWilkes-Gibbs’ (1986) results in the domain of action in thedecline of word count, verb phrases, turn taking, and numberof errors committed, with diminishing returns after one trial.However, we also document specific language reductions inpath related actions, but not in manner related actions. Wesuggest that path actions particularly depend on compositionaldescriptors of the environment, consistent with thecontemporary conceptualization of action (Barsalou, 2009).