Facial expressions and speech acts: experimental evidences on the role of the upper face as an illocutionary force indicating device in language comprehension

Language scientists have broadly addressed the problem of explaining how language users recognize the kind of speech act performed by a speaker uttering a sentence in a particular context. They have done so by investigating the role played by the illocutionary force indicating devices (IFIDs), i.e.,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognitive processing 2017-08, Vol.18 (3), p.285-306
Main Authors: Domaneschi, Filippo, Passarelli, Marcello, Chiorri, Carlo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Artificial Intelligence
Behavioral Sciences
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedicine
Comprehension
Face
Facial Expression
Female
Humans
Language
Linguistics
Male
Neurosciences
Psycholinguistics
Research Report
Semantics
Speech
Young Adult
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Summary:Language scientists have broadly addressed the problem of explaining how language users recognize the kind of speech act performed by a speaker uttering a sentence in a particular context. They have done so by investigating the role played by the illocutionary force indicating devices (IFIDs), i.e., all linguistic elements that indicate the illocutionary force of an utterance. The present work takes a first step in the direction of an experimental investigation of non-verbal IFIDs because it investigates the role played by facial expressions and, in particular, of upper-face action units (AUs) in the comprehension of three basic types of illocutionary force: assertions, questions, and orders. The results from a pilot experiment on production and two comprehension experiments showed that (1) certain upper-face AUs seem to constitute non-verbal signals that contribute to the understanding of the illocutionary force of questions and orders; (2) assertions are not expected to be marked by any upper-face AU; (3) some upper-face AUs can be associated, with different degrees of compatibility, with both questions and orders.
ISSN:1612-4782
1612-4790
DOI:10.1007/s10339-017-0809-6