The “Communication Game”: Goal-Directed Encoding and Cognitive Consequences

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine the consequences of following the rules and goals of social communication for the verbal encoding, representation, and recall of stimulus person information. Subjects read an essay describing the behaviors of a stimulus person after having been assigned the communication role of either speaker or listener. Half the subjects in each role were told that their communicative partner had received basically the same information about the stimulus person, and half were told that their partner had received different information. In each of these conditions, half the subjects were told that they would later receive additional information about the stimulus person, and half were not. Speakers were more likely to “stick to the facts” in describing the stimulus person when they believed that their listener had different information about the stimulus person than when they believed that their listener had the same information. This verbal encoding to suit the communicative situation affected the speakers' own subsequent memory of the stimulus person. Speakers' reproductions of the stimulus information became more accurate and complete after communicating it to a listener with supposedly different information about the stimulus person, but became less accurate and complete after communicating it to a listener with supposedly the same information. Speakers' premessage impressions of the stimulus person were positively polarized, regardless of whether they expected to receive additional information about the stimulus person; whereas listeners' premessage impressions were relatively neutral when they expected to receive additional information, but were positively polarized when they did not. The implications of the results for “cognitive tuning” and the influence of the “communication game” on social cognition are considered.