Seeing and Believing: Social Influences on Language Processing

Real-time language processing is typically embedded in a complex social world. Any instance of language comprehension in such circumstances is imbued with many potential social cues that can influence the production and interpretation of language. We review the literature suggesting that social cues indeed influence language processes in various ways. These cues extend from low-level perceptual variables, such as the perception of another’s gaze, to higher-level cues, such as knowledge of another’s belief states or knowledge. We offer a selective review of both laboratory and ecological interaction research showing that our language processes are indeed impacted by subtle social cuing, if the conditions are right. We end by discussing some theoretical implications of these many influences on language processing, looking to a self-organisation account of how levels interact and shape natural language usage.