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<Paper uid="W06-1409">
  <Title>measuring the benefits for readers</Title>
  <Section position="10" start_page="60" end_page="61" type="concl">
    <SectionTitle>
6 Conclusion
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> We have discussed generation strategies that facilitate resolution of referring expressions by adding logically redundant information to the descriptions generated. Redundancy has a role to play in different kinds of situation (see Introduction for references), but we have focussed on a class of cases that we believe to be widespread, namely where the domain is hierarchical. We have argued that, in such situations, minimally distinguishing descriptions can sometimes be useless. Various algorithms for generating logically redundant references have been implemented. The extensive experiment of section 5 indicates that these algorithms are fundamentally on the right track.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> The new algorithms discussed in this paper are an alternative to classical GRE algorithms. This raises the question how one knows whether to use the new FI or SL instead of one of its competitors? Let us compare the predictions made by our algorithms with those made by Dale and Haddock (1991). Suppose their description 'the bowl on the table' was said when there are two tables and two  bowls, while (only) the table furthest away from the hearer has a bowl on it. In this situation, FI and SL would generate something redundant like the bowl on the far-away table. Which of the two descriptions is best? We submit that it depends on the situation: when all the relevant facts are available to the hearer without effort (e.g., all the domain objects are visible at a glance) then minimal descriptions are fine. But in a huge room, where it is not obvious to the hearer what is on each table, search is required. It is this type of situation that there is a need for the kind of 'studied' redundancy embodied in FI and SL, because the minimally 'the bowl on the table' would not be very helpful. The new algorithms are designed for situations where the hearer may have to make an effort to uncover the relevant facts.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> By focussing on the benefits for the reader (in terms of the effort required for identifying the referent), we have not only substantiated the claims in Paraboni and van Deemter (2002), to the effect that it can be good to add logically redundant information to a referring expression; we have also been able to shed light on the reason why redundant descriptions are sometimes preferred (compared with the experiment in Paraboni and van Deemter (2002), which did not shed light on the reason for this preference): we can now say with some confidence that, in the circumstances specified, the generated redundant descriptions are resolved with particular ease. By counting the number of clicks that subjects need to find the referent, we believe that we may have achieved a degree of insight into the 'resolution' processes in the head of the reader, not unlike the insights coming out of the kind of eye-tracking experiments that have been popular in psycholinguistics for a number of years now. It would be interesting to see whether our ideas can be confirmed using such a more entrenched experimental paradigm.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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