Object Orientation in Dialogue

Most research on spatial communication focuses either on route instructions or on object reference, detailing how places and objects are referred to and where they are located. In this paper, we address object orientation in a spatial dialogue situation involving the placement of dollhouse furniture, and explore the role of canonical orientation for the amount of details provided and success of communication. Our results show that speakers are extremely creative when referring to and inferring object orientation information. They achieve communicative success in spite of leaving decisive aspects implicit, drawing on common sense. Where objects are oriented in a non-canonical way, references become more explicit, allowing for a similar level of success.