Speakers communicate to influence their partner's beliefs and shape their actions. Belief- and action-based objectives have been explored independently in recent computational models, but it has been challenging to explicitly compare or integrate them. Indeed, we find that they are conflated in standard referential communication tasks. To distinguish these accounts, we introduce a new paradigm called signaling bandits, generalizing classic Lewis signaling games to a multi-armed bandit setting where all targets in the context have some relative value. We develop three speaker models: a belief-oriented speaker with a purely informative objective; an action-oriented speaker with an instrumental objective; and a combined speaker which integrates the two by inducing listener beliefs that generally lead to desirable actions. We then present a series of simulations demonstrating that grounding production choices in future listener actions results in relevance effects and flexible uses of nonliteral language. More broadly, our findings suggest that language games based on richer decision problems are a promising avenue for insight into rational communication.
翻译:在最近的计算模型中,对信仰和基于行动的目标进行了独立探讨,但明确比较或整合这些目标具有挑战性。事实上,我们发现它们是标准特惠通信任务的混杂部分。为了区分这些账户,我们引入了一种新的模式,称为信号强盗,将传统的刘易斯信号游戏推广到一个多武装强盗环境,在这个环境中所有目标都具有某种相对价值。我们开发了三个发言者模式:一个面向信仰的发言者,其目标纯粹是信息化的;一个面向行动的发言者,其目标具有工具性;以及一个将两者结合起来的发言者,通过诱导听众信仰,一般导致理想行动,将两者结合起来。我们随后提出一系列模拟,表明在今后的倾听者行动中,将生产选择作为基础,会产生相关性效应,灵活地使用不通俗的语言。更广泛地说,我们的调查结果表明,基于较富裕决策问题的语言游戏是深入了解合理沟通的可行途径。