2022 年 40 巻 2 号 p. 98-109
Lexical alignment in conversation involves higher-order cognitive activities like perspective taking. Past studies have shown that a prior knowledge schema influences the occurrence of rapid lexical alignment. However, lexical alignment studies using Japanese words have not been fully investigated; therefore, one of the challenges is to investigate the occurrence of lexical alignment at the word level in Japanese. Considering this, this study developed a Japanese version of the lexical alignment task implemented online and examined the occurrence of alignment. We also investigated the factor of mere belief about the participants’ partners, which was investigated in past studies by having participants interact with either a human agent or a computer (as a partner). This study conducted an online experiment with 54 participants. The results show that two types of alignment behavior emerged during the task. The influence of belief was only detected on the participants’ impressions towards their partner; however, it did not appear in a lexical alignment. We discussed whether the participants updated their schema during their task, and if so, considered its influence on the alignment behavior. Further online experiments focusing on the types of schemas are discussed for future studies.
