Amplifying signals of misunderstanding improves coordination in dialogue

We report a dialogue task which investigates how the mechanisms of miscommunication contribute toward referential coordination. Participants communicate via a text-based instant messaging tool which is used to identify turns that were edited prior to sending. These turns are transformed by the server into artificial self-corrections, and sent to the participants. The patterns observed in the dialogues show that these interventions have a beneficial effect on referential coordination.