See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/297765070

Classic conversational norms in modern computer-mediated collaboration

Article · January 2016

CITATION READS

1 129

2 authors:

Aileen Oeberst Johannes Moskaliuk

FernUniversität in Hagen International School of Management, Germany
56 PUBLICATIONS   399 CITATIONS    103 PUBLICATIONS   1,346 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Psychology of Coaching and Leadership View project

Lay beliefs about memory in the legal context View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Johannes Moskaliuk on 22 November 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Oeberst, A., & Moskaliuk, J. (2016). Classic Conversational Norms in Modern Computer-Mediated Collaboration. Educational
Technology & Society, 19 (1), 187–198.

Classic Conversational Norms in Modern Computer-Mediated Collaboration

Aileen Oeberst1* and Johannes Moskaliuk2
1
Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien, Tübingen, Germany // 2University of Tübingen, Germany //
a.oeberst@iwm-tuebingen.de // johannes.moskaliuk@uni-tuebingen.de
*
Corresponding author

(Submitted December 22, 2014; Revised May 29, 2015; Accepted July 17, 2015)

ABSTRACT
This paper examines whether conversational norms that have been observed for face-to-face communication
also hold in the context of a specific type of computer-mediated communication: collaboration (such as in
Wikipedia). Specifically, we tested adherence to Grice’s (1975) maxim of relation—the implicit demand to
contribute information that is relevant (only) for the purpose of the communication. In two experiments about a
historical event, we manipulated the relevance of information provided as well as the context of the
collaboration (i.e., encyclopedia article vs. contemporary witness compendium). In line with Grice’s maxim,
participants indeed reliably preferred information that was relevant for the specific context (e.g., information of
general relevance to a broader audience in the encyclopedia context).

Keywords
Conversational norms, Maxim of relation, Computer-mediated communication (CMC), Collaborative knowledge
construction, Wikipedia

Introduction
The Internet increased the possibilities of communication exponentially. One can discuss in forums, follow the posts
of others, share digital artifacts and comment on them, and collaborate with people one might not even know. Such
computer-mediated communication (CMC) differs profoundly from face-to-face communication (Flaherty, Pearce, &
Rubin, 1998), particularly with regard to anonymity, time delay, lack of shared context, lack of immediate feedback
and the possibility of simultaneous involvement in other ongoing exchanges (e.g., Atifi, Mandelcwaig, & Marcoccia,
2011; Eklundh, 2010; Herring, 1999; McKenna & Bargh, 2000; Sproull & Kiesler, 1986). One specific form of CMC
is computer-mediated collaboration; for example, the collaborative construction of knowledge within the online
encyclopedia Wikipedia. Here, authors collaboratively write encyclopedic articles with the goal of collecting and
disseminating the world’s knowledge. Despite the differences between CMC and face-to-face communication, one
might presume that classic conversational norms operate nevertheless. In this paper we examine this question in the
context of computer-mediated collaboration in different kinds of wikis.

Grice’s classic conversational norms

In his widely acknowledged account of conversation, Grice (1975) started from the observation that communication
sometimes seems to be incredibly irrational and, at the same time, highly effective. What we say is not always what
we mean and thus meaning has to be inferred in order to make a conversation work smoothly (Clark, 1985). But how
can anyone reliably infer the meaning that was intended? According to Grice (1975), this is due to shared
fundamental norms that derive from a joint interest in a successful conversation — the so-called “cooperative
principle,” which prompts communicators to make their “conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage
at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged” (p. 45). This
principle was fleshed out in four maxims. According to these, communicators should make their contribution as
informative as is necessary (maxim of quantity). They should be truthful and not say what they believe to be false or
anything for which they lack evidence (maxim of quality). Moreover, their contribution should be relevant (maxim of
relation) and communicators should avoid ambiguity, obscurity, prolixity and incoherence (maxim of manner).

While Grice (1975) did not expect all people to be compliant all the time, he proposed adherence to be reasonable
and thus the default of communication. That is, although we would not trust notorious liars, Grice (1975) proposes
that we assume others to be truthful—unless we have reasons to doubt.

ISSN 1436-4522 (online) and 1176-3647 (print). This article of the Journal of Educational Technology & Society is available under Creative Commons CC-BY-ND-NC
187
3.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). For further queries, please contact Journal Editors at ets-editors@ifets.info.
For the present purpose, we will focus on the demand to contribute relevant information. This requirement is not
only directly expressed in the maxim of relation, but also included in the maxim of quantity (Do not be more
informative than necessary) and manner (Avoid prolixity). In offline communication, research has gathered empirical
support for a general adherence to this norm. Although minor deviations do occur (Engelhardt, Bailey, & Ferreira,
2006; Rundquist, 1992), major deviations have been found only in profound dysfunctions such as autism (Surian,
Baron-Cohen, & van der Lely, 1996) and schizophrenia (Corcoran & Frith, 1996). Hence, people generally comply
with the requirement to contribute something relevant (and not more than that). Moreover, violations are often
reinterpreted in a meaningful way (Schwarz, 1996; 1999), suggesting that people do expect others to adhere to such a
norm (Bless, Strack, & Schwarz, 1993).

But does this extend to CMC? Grice (1975) questioned generalizability to all types of exchange (e.g., letter writing),
but essentially, he argued that a genuine interest in the central goal of the communication is crucial: anyone who
cares about that “must be expected to have an interest […] in participation in talk exchanges that will be profitable
only on the assumption that they are conducted in general accordance with the cooperative principle and the
maxims.” (p. 49). Theoretically, then, the Gricean maxims could well hold in the context of CMC—if
communicators share a common goal of their exchange. It is desirable to communicate only relevant information
(Hambridge, 1995; Newlands, Anderson, & Mullin, 2003; Subramani & Hahn, 2000). Adherence, however, was
examined in only two studies and only with regard to redundancy. Both found compliance with the maxim of
quantity in the context of newsgroup discussions (Atifi et al., 2011; Eklundh, 2010). For email conversation, in
contrast, undifferentiated and unedited quoting of previous messages (i.e., redundancy) was reported (Eklundh,
2010). It may be arguable, however, whether this finding represents a violation of the maxim of quantity, given that
the old message appeared below the original contribution and thus did not interfere with it. Nevertheless, this finding
indicates that generalization to different kinds of CMC cannot be taken for granted.

Computer-mediated collaboration with wikis

In computer-mediated collaboration, the collaboration is mediated by a shared digital artifact, which is edited. When
people are working together, successful communication becomes even more important. But no research regarding
adherence to conversational norms has yet been conducted in the context of computer-mediated collaboration. The
objective of the type of computer-mediated collaboration we are interested is knowledge construction. In this case,
authors contribute their own knowledge, edit and rewrite the contributions of others, and collaboratively construct a
text that represents their common knowledge (Cress & Kimmerle, 2008; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006). In the
educational context, wikis are used as collaborative e-learning environments (Li, Dong, & Huang 2011), for the
facilitation of primary-school students’ collaborative writing (Woo, Chu, Ho, & Li, 2011) or for the joint
development of teaching material (Lin, Lin, Huang, & Cheng, 2013).

One of the most impressive results of computer-mediated collaboration, however, is the online encyclopedia
Wikipedia. Here, thousands of users voluntarily contribute to the world’s largest compendium of knowledge
(Anthony, Smith, & Williamson, 2009; Halfaker, Kittur, Kraut, & Riedl, 2009). Although users may also
communicate directly with each other (Kittur & Kraut, 2008; Viégas, Wattenberg, Kriss, & van Ham, 2007), we will
focus on article editing because this reflects the genuine collaboration. We assume that this collaborative knowledge
construction is likewise based on conversational norms that guide individual communication. An essential
precondition for the successful construction of knowledge is that that only relevant information is contributed. But
collaborative knowledge construction differs from other types of communication in several ways.

First, it is indirect. A shared digital artifact mediates the collaboration. That is, individual authors communicate by
editing the Wikipedia article (e.g., by complementing, revising or reverting others’ contributions). Second, the
addressee is unknown and it is a many-to-many communication. Authors who contribute to Wikipedia, for instance,
do not know who will read their contributions (or the article in general) nor who might also decide to revise the
article. Third, the unique contribution is usually not precisely identifiable, at least not prima facie. Instead, it is
embedded in a body of written text and from this it is not immediately visible, who contributed, revised or deleted
which part of the text. Such information is only revealed when retrieving the revision history of the article. Hence,
collaboration focuses on the result of the artifact-mediated communication; that is, on the artifact itself (e.g., the
resulting Wikipedia article).

188
Conversational norms in the context of computer-mediated collaboration

In sum then, computer-mediated collaborative knowledge construction differs substantially from other forms of
CMC. But it is precisely its differentness that renders collaborative knowledge construction interesting. Essentially, it
puts Grice’s maxim under rigorous scrutiny: If evidence for the operation of Grice’s maxims were found in the realm
of collaborative knowledge construction, this would argue for broad validity of these conversational norms.
Moreover, such evidence would in turn indicate that novel and specific forms of computer-mediated communication
can be traced back (at least in part) to fundamental norms that underlie daily conversations.

Despite the many differences that characterize collaborative knowledge construction in comparison to CMC as well
as classic face-to-face conversations, contributing one’s own knowledge to a shared digital artifact is a
communicative act (Cress & Kimmerle, 2008). Accordingly, conversational norms can be assumed to influence
collaboration. But whereas truth (maxim of quality) is absolute, relevance (maxim of relation) depends on the
communication context and purpose (Grice, 1975). An encyclopedic article about a historical event, for instance,
should contain mostly information of general relevance for the event, whereas a contemporary witness article, on the
other hand, should contain more information that refers to a specific witness of an event. In order to apply this
maxim appropriately, individuals must thus be aware of the specific aim and scope of the shared digital artifact. For
encyclopedic articles and contemporary witness accounts and their contents, we presumed that there was a
conventional understanding, which was shared by most adults (i.e., holding a schema about encyclopedias, Brewer &
Nakamura, 1984). Accordingly, we expected participants to hold differential beliefs about which information was
relevant in either context.

We therefore propose that the maxim of relation guides individual behavior in the context of collaboration. To
examine this question experimentally, we placed participants in two different contexts (encyclopedia vs.
contemporary witness compendium) and assessed which information was preferred (Experiment 1) and actually
included (Experiment 2) in an article. To this end, we provided participants with a text about a historical event that
contained information of varying relevance: Some information was of relevance for a broader audience (general
relevance), some information concerned individuals only (individual relevance), and some information lacked any
reference to the event (irrelevance).

If participants adhered to Grice’s maxim of relation, we would expect an interaction between the context
(encyclopedia vs. contemporary witness compendium) and the information relevance (general relevance, individual
relevance, irrelevance). In the encyclopedia condition, participants should prefer information of general relevance
over information of individual relevance (hypothesis 1) and irrelevant information (hypothesis 2). In contrast, in the
contemporary witness condition, participants should prefer information of individual relevance over information of
general relevance (hypothesis 3) and irrelevant information (hypothesis 4). Also, information of general relevance
should be preferred for the encyclopedic article compared to the contemporary witness compendium (hypothesis 5),
whereas information of individual relevance should be preferred for the contemporary witness report compared to the
encyclopedic article (hypothesis 6).

Experiment 1

Method

Design and participants

Sixty-nine undergraduate psychology students (54 female; Mage = 22.22; SD = 4.41) participated and received partial
course credit as compensation. They were randomly assigned to either the encyclopedia (n = 37) or the contemporary
witness (n = 32) condition. Information relevance (general, individual, irrelevant) was manipulated within subjects.
Hence, the study consisted of a 2 x 3 mixed design.

189
Material

The material consisted of a text about the Football War, which was fought by El Salvador and Honduras in 1969. It
was caused by political conflicts and tensions between the two countries and coincided with the inflamed rioting
during the qualifying round of the 1970 World Cup. The text was constructed in order to contain sentences with
information of different kinds of relevance. Sentences of general relevance referred to historical facts that are
relevant to a broader audience (e.g., “The government of El Salvador decided in favour of a military intervention,
which started on July 14, 1969.”). Information of individual relevance concerned single individuals only (e.g., “For
Pipo Rodriguez, the scorer of the goal that qualified for the World Championship, this game was a turning point in
his life.”). Sentences with irrelevant information lacked any reference to the Football War (e.g., “Gerd Mueller,
player of the German National Team, was chosen as best scorer of the championship.”).

The initial version consisted of 49 sentences. These sentences were then submitted to a pretest in which thirteen
raters were asked to carefully read each sentence and sort it into one of the three categories of information relevance
(general, individual, irrelevant), or to indicate that no meaningful categorization was possible. For the final text only
sentences upon which at least eight of the thirteen raters agreed were included. Moreover, it was ensured that each
category of information relevance contained the same number of sentences (11 each). The final text therefore
included 33 sentences in total. The order of the sentences was mixed; readability was unanimously confirmed in yet
another pretest (N = 6 students).

Procedure

At the beginning of this online experiment, participants learned that the study was about the perception of historical
events. They were asked to read the following text carefully. Afterwards, they were asked to imagine that they were
about to contribute to either the online encyclopedia Wikipedia (encyclopedia condition) or to the online wiki of
contemporary witness reports (contemporary witness condition). This manipulation was reinforced by the
presentation of the Wikipedia logo or an emblem that read “contemporary witness” and continued throughout
participants’ ratings. Each of the 33 sentences was then presented again separately, and participants indicated how
likely they would include the information into the article (1 = extremely unlikely, 7 = extremely likely). Afterwards,
prior knowledge of the war was assessed (none of them had such knowledge), and participants provided reasons for
their information selection (open response format). Subsequently, we checked whether participants had realized the
existence of (a) generally relevant, (b) individually relevant, and (c) irrelevant information in the text. Finally,
demographic variables were assessed.

Results

Alpha was set to .05, p’s reported are one-tailed with regard to t-tests concerning directed hypotheses and two-tailed
otherwise.

Manipulation check

The questions of whether generally relevant, individually relevant, and irrelevant information had been contained in
the text were affirmed by the overwhelming majority of participants (68, 69, and 65 out of 69 participants,
respectively). Hence, participants were aware of different types of information and were thus also able to select the
ones they found suitable for the article in question. Internal consistencies of participants’ likelihood ratings were
analyzed for each category of information relevance (general, individual, irrelevant). Cronbach’s α ranged from .79
to .95. The sentences of each type of information relevance thus proved to be highly inter-correlated, which allowed
for aggregation. All subsequent analyses are therefore based on average likelihood ratings per information category.

Information selection

We first conducted a 2 x 3 mixed ANOVA with condition (encyclopedia vs. contemporary witness) as between-
subjects factor and information relevance (general, individual, irrelevant) as within-subjects factor. Our hypotheses
190
suggest that there should be a significant interaction. This is indeed what we found, F(2,134) = 55.54, p < .001, ηp2
= .45. Beyond that, the analysis yielded a main effect of information relevance, F(2,134) = 119.97, p < .001, ηp2
= .64. In order to elucidate the interaction and to test hypotheses 1 through 4 directly, we report planned paired t-tests
for both between-subjects conditions separately.

As can be seen in Table 1, participants in the encyclopedia condition indicated that they were significantly more
likely to include information of general than of individual relevance, t(36) = 15.93, p < .001, d = 2.65, or irrelevant
information, t(36) = 14.11, p < .001, d = 2.36. Hence, hypotheses 1 and 2 were supported.

Table 1. Mean likelihood of including information

Encyclopedia Contemporary witness report
M SD M SD
General relevance 6.17 0.64 5.18 0.91
Individual relevance 2.18 1.09 4.80 1.10
Irrelevant 3.09 0.99 3.33 1.25

In the contemporary witness condition, participants likewise indicated a higher probability of including information
of individual relevance than irrelevant information, t(31) = 6.13, p < .001, d = 1.10. There was, however, no
significant difference between information of general and individual relevance, t(31) = 1.24, p = .11. Hence,
hypothesis 3 but not hypothesis 4 was supported.

Hypotheses 5 and 6 were tested in two separate planned independent t-tests. Information of general relevance was
significantly more likely to be included in an encyclopedia than in a contemporary witness report t(54) = 5.13, p
< .001, d = 1.28 As predicted, the pattern was reversed for information of individual relevance, t(67) = 9.89, p < .001,
d = 2.39. Hence, the data supported both hypotheses.

Additional analyses

We asked participants for aspects that guided their selection of information and inductively identified various
categories, which are presented in Table 2. With regard to the encyclopedic article, objective facts of general
relevance and with direct reference to the war seemed most relevant, whereas information concerning individual
fates, emotions or evaluations were regarded as undesirable and inappropriate.

Table 2. Desirability of aspects depending on text format (absolute frequencies)

Encyclopedic article Contemporary witness report
Study 1 Study 2 Study 1 Study 2
Desirable Facts 12 7 5 2
aspects Direct reference to the war 9 13 11 8
Dispassion 9 3 – 4
Information of general relevance 8 10 3 1
Objectivity 7 2 – 1
Verifiability 1 – – –
Individual fates – – 16 4
Emotions – – 4 1
Specificity – – 2 –
Undesirable Individual fates 22 16 1 6
aspects Facts – – – 1
Specificity 5 3 2 2
Emotions 5 – – –
Irrelevance for the war 3 5 – 6
Personal evaluations 2 1 _ –
Soccer details – 3 1 1

191
In the contemporary witness condition, in contrast, participants’ information selection was much more geared to
individual fates. With regard to information of general relevance, however, the two conditions were quite similar to
one another. Participants in the contemporary witness condition repeatedly argued that information of general
relevance about the war was important to ensure a general understanding of the event. Participants’ reasons thus
mirror our findings about hypothesis 4 and provide an explanation for why the results did not conform to our
expectations.

Discussion

We set out to test whether conversational norms hold in the context of computer-mediated collaborative knowledge
construction. The present study suggests that this is predominantly the case. Participants in both conditions reliably
preferred relevant information to irrelevant information. Moreover, they preferred information that was relevant for
the specific context. Historical facts of broad and lasting relevance were chosen predominantly for an article in an
online encyclopedia, whereas information that concerned individual experiences was rather rejected. In contrast,
individually relevant information was much more likely to be incorporated in a contemporary witness
compendium—interestingly to the same extent as generally relevant information. Participants’ explanations for their
selection provided insight into this pattern: They argued that reports about contemporary witnesses should be
accompanied by general information. Accordingly, their abstract representation of what kind of information a
contemporary witness compendium should contain matched their reasoning.

About half of all participants valued objective information in addition to personal information. Although this was
contrary to our hypothesis, it makes sense in that it provides a background in which individual fates may be
meaningfully embedded. While one may argue that this ultimately serves the cooperative principle, it points to the
difficulty of defining relevance a priori (see also General Discussion).

A major limitation of the current study is that participants only had to judge the likelihood with which they would
include certain information into a text. To assess actual editing behavior, we conducted Experiment 2.

Experiment 2
This experiment differed from Experiment 1 only with regard to participants’ task and thus the dependent variables.
Instead of assessing likelihood ratings we measured whether they actually did or did not include it in an encyclopedic
article/contemporary witness compendium.

Method

Design and participants

In total, 65 participants completed the online experiment. We excluded, however, data from six participants who
spent less than two minutes on the page where they were to read and edit the text, because reading the text alone
takes about that much time. In line with this reasoning, none of these six participants made a single edit. The
subsequent results are therefore based on a total of 59 participants (41 female; Mage = 25.46; SD = 6.21). The pattern
of results was identical, however, for the total sample.

Participants were randomly assigned to either the encyclopedia (n = 32) or the contemporary witness (n = 27)
condition. Information relevance (general, individual, irrelevant) was manipulated within subjects. As dependent
variables we assessed which information participants included in the text they had to edit (i.e., information
selection). Additionally, we asked for their reasons and their general evaluations of context-dependent information
relevance.

192
Materials and procedure

We used the same materials as in Experiment 1 and conducted the study online. Participants were told that the study
was about the presentation of historical events. Their task was to create an article about the Football War.

Participants were asked to create an article they found appropriate for (a) the online encyclopedia Wikipedia or (b) a
contemporary witness compendium (random assignment). Again, this experimental manipulation was accompanied
by the presentation of a logo (Wikipedia vs. contemporary witness logo). Participants then received the same text as
used in Experiment 1 and were instructed to read it carefully and to edit it. It was stressed that they could engage in
any kind of editing—rephrasing, rearranging, adding, or deleting information. Finally, we asked participants why
they had selected some information but not other and additionally asked them to indicate which kind of information
they found in general to be relevant for (a) the compilation of encyclopedic articles and (b) the compilation of
contemporary witness reports.

Results

Manipulation check and analysis

The question of whether generally relevant, individually relevant, and irrelevant information had been contained in
the text was again affirmed by the overwhelming majority of participants (58, 55, and 53 out of 59 participants,
respectively). Participants’ texts were analyzed and the number of sentences per relevance category (general,
individual relevance or irrelevance) was determined. Participants mainly edited at the sentence level (i.e., deleted or
kept entire sentences in > 90% of the cases). If only a part of the information contained in a sentence was included
into the text, this was counted as half a sentence.

Information selection

To analyze the number of sentences per relevance category included in participants’ texts, we first conducted a 2 x 3
mixed analysis of variance with condition (encyclopedia vs. contemporary witness) as a between-subjects factor and
information relevance of the sentences (general, individual, irrelevant) as a within-subjects factor. Consistent with
our hypotheses, we obtained a significant interaction of condition and information relevance, F(2,114) = 9.61, p
< .001, ηp2 = .14. Moreover, the analysis yielded a main effect of information relevance, F(2,114) = 36.37, p < .001,
ηp2 = .39. In order to elucidate the interaction and in order to test hypotheses 1 through 4 directly, we conducted
planned paired t-tests for both conditions separately. As can be seen in Table 3, participants in the encyclopedia
condition included significantly more sentences containing information of general relevance than sentences
containing information of individual relevance, t(31) = 7.63, p < .001, d = 1.63, or irrelevant information, t(31) =
4.24, p < .001, d = 0.92. Hence, hypotheses 1 and 2 were supported.

Table 3. Mean number of sentences per relevance category texts

Encyclopedia Contemporary witness report
M SD M SD
General relevance 10.53 1.26 9.83 1.97
Individual relevance 4.47 4.46 7.69 4.11
Irrelevant 6.86 4.95 5.83 3.72

In the contemporary witness condition, participants likewise included significantly more sentences with information
of individual relevance than of irrelevant information, t(26) = 3.09, p < .001, d = 0.60. Contrary to our expectations,
however, they included significantly fewer sentences containing information of individual relevance than sentences
containing information of general relevance, t(26) = 3.06, p < .001, d = 0.68. Hence, hypothesis 3 but not hypothesis
4 was supported.

Hypotheses 5 and 6 were tested in two planned separate independent t-tests. Information of general relevance was
significantly more often selected in the encyclopedia condition than in the contemporary witness condition, t(57) =

193
1.64, p < .05, d = 0.43. As predicted, the pattern was reversed for information of individual relevance, t(57) = 2.82, p
< .01, d = 0.74. Hence, the data supported both hypotheses.

Additional analyses

Table 2 provides insight into aspects that guided participants’ selections in each condition. With regard to the
encyclopedic article, the pattern mirrors the responses of Experiment 1. Objective facts of general relevance and with
direct reference to the war seemed most desirable, whereas information concerning individual fates, emotions, or
evaluations were regarded as inappropriate for an encyclopedic article. For the contemporary witness compendium,
in contrast, participants did not express as much preference for individual fates as did participants in Experiment 1,
and some even found individual fates to be undesirable—although this still occurred less frequently than in the
encyclopedia condition.

Our question regarding which kind of information participants found relevant for the respective contexts, in contrast,
elicited a very straightforward pattern of results that provided further support for our hypotheses. For an
encyclopedic article, none of the 59 participants found personal information to be relevant but all 59 participants
affirmed the relevance of objective information. For a contemporary witness compendium, in contrast, personal
information was judged to be as relevant (selected by 44 out of 59) as objective information (selected by 41 out of
59). Accordingly, more participants had quoted objective information for an encyclopedic article compared to the
contemporary witness report (59 vs. 41) and fewer participants found personal information relevant for an
encyclopedic article than they did for a contemporary witness account (0 vs. 44).

Discussion

We sought to replicate the findings of Experiment 1 with actual behavior as a dependent measure. The general
pattern of results was identical. Participants’ information selection was context-specific, which hints towards
compliance to Grice’s maxim of relation. For an encyclopedic article, mainly historical facts of broad and lasting
relevance were selected, whereas information concerning individual experiences was mainly deleted. In contrast,
individual fates were significantly more often included in a contemporary witness compendium—although less
frequently than generally relevant information. Similar to Experiment 1, however, participants argued for the
relevance of general information about the event in order to present the individual fate in a meaningful context. The
lower number of sentences of individual relevance included deserves a few words, however. Possibly, this finding is
due to our material because the text contained information about individual fates of different persons. Many
participants in the contemporary witness condition wrote a report about one contemporary witness, however.
Consequently, they deleted all sentences concerning other individuals. In Experiment 1, in contrast, participants did
not need to choose between individuals because they were not required to create a cohesive text. Rather, they were
asked only to indicate how likely it was that they would include a given sentence into a hypothetical contemporary
witness report. Without specifying this hypothetical report, it is possible to think of different reports for the different
individual fates—or not to think about its concrete realization at all.

The assessment of actual behavior provided other valuable insights as well. It suggested that participants in the
contemporary witness condition had the more demanding task. They did not only have to choose among different
persons, but also had to rearrange the general event information in order to provide a coherent text that fit the
experience of the chosen contemporary witness. A few participants even opted for a narrative from the first-person
perspective, and one participant made sure to present only event information that the chosen contemporary witness
was able to know. These elaborations suggest that the task in this condition was more challenging and made more
editing necessary.

Another aspect that needs to be discussed regards irrelevant information that was included into the texts. For both
conditions we would have expected information to be deleted that was neither directly related to the war itself nor to
any experience of a contemporary witness of that war. Nevertheless, even the irrelevant information was related
somehow to the Football War. The last three sentences of the text, for instance, which had been included by many
participants, referred to the championship qualification forty years after the Football War, the game between
Honduras and El Salvador and measures to prevent any incidents. Surely, this information did not add to the Football

194
War in describing or explaining it. But the Football War had resulted from the game and so this information could
arguably be evaluated as (sufficiently) relevant to be included into the text. Essentially, this observation once more
outlines the difficulty of defining relevance a priori and of drawing a precise line between relevance and
inappropriateness. Probably, the results would have been different if the irrelevant information contained in the text
had indeed lacked any reference to the war.

General discussion
Taken together, the two studies provide converging empirical support for Grice’s maxim of relation and thus
replicate earlier findings (Atifi et al., 2011; Eklundh, 2010). Major extensions include (1) the investigation of the
maxim of relation and its context-dependency, (2) the setting of collaborative knowledge construction, and (3) the
internal validity of the present findings due to our experimental approach. Furthermore, our findings are validated by
additional observations (participants’ reasons for information selection as well as their understanding of what
information is relevant in which context).

Despite the fact that our general pattern of results conformed to our hypotheses and thus argues for participants’
adherence to Grice’s maxim of relation, it is necessary to acknowledge some unexpected findings.

Participants selected more information of general relevance and more irrelevant information than expected in the
contemporary witness condition. We have already outlined a meaningful interpretation of these deviances. One may
even argue that these findings are in line with Grice’s cooperative principle. The provision of generally relevant
information may provide a meaningful background into which an individual experience may be embedded. Also,
some of the information categorized as irrelevant in terms of their lacking direct reference to the actual event may be
viewed as relevant in terms of a different link to the event (e.g., its consequences).

These elaborations lead us to a very important aspect: Our unexpected findings clearly illustrate that our research
question is not a trivial one. Our overall pattern of results makes sense as it is and may thus seem to be obvious. But
the deviances from our theoretically derived hypotheses point out that this impression is likely to result from the
benefit of hindsight (Slovic & Fischhoff, 1977). A similar case can be made for the observation reported by Eklundh
(2010). Here, unedited quoting of previous messages in email conversations was initially viewed as flouting Grice’s
maxim of quantity. After all, if one includes the entire previous email in one’s response, there is a maximum of
redundancy (as the recipient will receive his or her own message again in full length). Such has been interpreted as a
violation of the conversational norm to be as informative as necessary, but not more informative. However, the
redundant text did not interfere with the original conversational contribution because it was automatically included
and displayed below the response (i.e., non-redundant information). So it is arguable whether it indeed represents a
violation of Grice’s maxim of quantity and whether the initial hypotheses still make sense.

When trying to use foresight, it is much more difficult to define information relevance. Additional support for this
notion is the fact that agreement upon the type of information relevance in the pretest was far from perfect. Although
we had included only sentences upon which eight of the thirteen raters had agreed, this also means that up to five
raters had placed the same sentence in a different category of information relevance. (Recall, however, that the
sentences that were finally included for each type of information relevance proved to be useful, as indicated by their
internal consistencies.) In sum, we conclude that the investigation of adherence to conversational norms—Grice’s
maxim of relation in the present study—is not trivial, even though in hindsight it may seem to be. On the contrary,
this investigation clearly indicates a need for further research to arrive at a better understanding of conversational
norms and their observance in computer-mediated contexts.

One potential limitation needs to be addressed at this point. Female participants were overrepresented in our samples.
Previous research indicates that flouting of Grice’s maxims is more prevalent among men than women (Rundquist,
1992). Could our findings thus be biased? In order to test this, we reran all analyses with gender as additional
between-subjects factor. In none of the cases did we obtain a significant impact of gender. The possibility that female
participants might show a particularly pronounced pattern cannot be ruled out (as suggested by Rundquist, 1992),
however. Essentially, this might be a specific research question for future studies.

195
Our investigation focused on one aspect—relevance. Although it is implied in several of Grice’s maxims (Relation,
Quantity, Manner) generalizability of our findings to other aspects and maxims has to be tested. Viégas and
colleagues (e.g., Viégas, Wattenberg, & Dave; 2004; Viégas, Wattenberg, Kriss, & van Ham, 2007) analyzed
collaborative knowledge construction in Wikipedia and found evidence of vandalism, such as the complete deletion
of previously gathered knowledge. This destructive editing represents a radical break with the Gricean cooperative
principle and indicates indifference to the central goal of the Wikipedians, namely knowledge construction. Another
question for further research is how such destructive communication differs between the computer-mediated context
and the face-to-face context. We assume that the specific type of communication (e.g., CMC vs. face-to-face
conversation) and the respective characteristics eventually turn out to have little impact as long as all communicators
share an interest in the central goal of their communication (Grice, 1975; see also Baytiyeh & Pfaffman, 2010; Jadin,
Gnambs, & Batinic, 2013; Yang & Lai, 2010). It may seem that a shared goal would be most evident in the context
of collaboration, but previous research also from other contexts, supports Grice’s assumption that people generally
have a shared the goal in their communication in most cases (cooperative principle). After all, communication would
be pointless if they did not.

What are the consequences of our findings from an educational point of view? We assume that educational
technology does not change collaboration in general as long as communicators have a shared goal. Conversational
norms (e.g., the maxim of relation) seem to hold also in computer-mediated settings. From this perspective, the main
question is not whether technology could or should be used in schools, universities and other educational contexts
but how technology should be designed to support collaborative knowledge construction and foster the active
participation of learners.

Wikis (and other educational technology) are more than a technological tool. Their value lies in their implicit norms
and guidelines of how to use them. Presenting an encyclopedic wiki in an educational setting, for example, should
influence which kind of information learners introduce and how they work on the existing text compared to other
kinds of wikis or similar tools. The didactical design of educational technology implicitly shapes its application. We
assume that even implicit psychosocial principles of wikis, like the self-organization of the community or the
diversity and autonomy of participants (Moskaliuk & Kimmerle, 2009) influence how learners use the wiki to
communicate and collaborate. These implicit norms should be discussed with the learners to make them explicit and
to facilitate successful learning and collaboration. Another important aspect is that learners need a new kind of
information literacy, which is necessary for active participation in open collaboration and knowledge construction
(Forte, 2015). They have to consciously exercise purposeful and constructive communication oriented towards
building knowledge. As a result, they necessarily become an active part of a knowledge construction community
(and society). One way of supporting this process is to use scripts that support wiki-based collaboration and to
structure the mutual revision of contributions (Wichmann & Rummel, 2013). This could foster the development and
adherence to conversational norms in educational settings.

Conclusion
Grice’s maxim of relation is valid even in the context of computer-mediated collaborative knowledge construction.
This leads to two important conclusions. First, our findings argue for the pervasiveness of Grice’s conversational
norms as computer-mediated collaborative knowledge construction differ in many regards substantially from face-to-
face conversations, which Grice had in mind when formulating his maxims. Second, our results argue that new
technology does not necessarily come along with new rules and new outcomes (e.g., lower quality). Because they
have become increasingly important in our society, computer-mediated communication and collaboration should be
an integral part of education.

References
Anthony, D., Smith, S. W., & Williamson, T. (2009). Reputation and reliability in collective goods. Rationality and Society, 21(3),
283–306.
Atifi, H., Mandelcwajg, S., & Marcoccia, M. (2011). The Co-operative principle and computer-mediated communication: The
Maxim of quantity in newsgroup discussions. Language Sciences, 33(2), 330–340.

196
Baytiyeh, H., & Pfaffman, J. (2010). Open source software: A Community of altruists. Computers in Human Behavior, 26(6),
1345–1354.
Bless, H., Strack, F., & Schwarz, N. (1993). The Informative functions of research procedures: Bias and the logic of conversation.
European Journal of Social Psychology, 23, 149–165.
Brewer, W. F., & Nakamura, G. V. (1984). The Nature and functions of schemas (Technical Report No. 325). Cambridge, MA:
Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc.
Clark, H. H. (1985). Language use and language users. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (Vol.
2, pp. 179–232). New York, NY: Random House.
Corcoran, R., & Frith, C. D. (1996). Conversational conduct and the symptoms of schizophrenia. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 1(4),
305–318.
Cress, U., & Kimmerle, J. (2008). A Systemic and cognitive view on collaborative knowledge building with wikis. International
Journal of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, 3(2), 105–122.
Eklundh, K. S. (2010). To Quote or not to quote: Setting the context for computer-mediated dialogues. Language@Internet, 7,
Article 5.
Engelhardt, P. E., Bailey, K. G. D., & Ferreira, F. (2006). Do speakers and listeners observe the Gricean Maxim of Quantity?
Journal of Memory and Language, 54(4), 554–573.
Flaherty, L. M., Pearce, K. J., & Rubin, R. (1998). Internet and face-to-face communication: Not functional alternatives.
Communication Quarterly, 46(3), 250–268.
Forte, A. (2015). The New information literate: Open collaboration and information production in Schools. International Journal
of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 10(1), 35–51.
Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics 3. Speech acts (pp. 41–58).
New York, NY: Academic Press.
Halfaker, A., Kittur A., Kraut, R., & Riedl, J. (2009). A Jury of your peers: Quality, experience and ownership in Wikipedia. In
Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (Article 15). New York, NY: ACM.
Hambridge, S. (1995). RFC 1855: Netiquette guidelines. Retrieved from http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855
Herring, S. C. (1999). Interactional coherence in CMC. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 4(4). doi:10.1111/j.1083-
6101.1999.tb00106.x
Jadin, T., Gnambs, T., & Batinic, B. (2013). Personality traits and knowledge sharing in online communities. Computers in
Human Behavior, 29(1), 210–216.
Kittur, A., & Kraut, R. E. (2008). Harnessing the wisdom of crowds in Wikipedia: Quality through coordination. In Proceedings
of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (pp. 37-46). New York, NY: ACM Press.
Li, Y., Dong, M., & Huang, R. (2011). Designing collaborative e-learning environments based upon semantic wiki: From design
models to application scenarios. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 14(4), 49–63.
Lin, Y. T., Lin, Y. C., Huang, Y. M., & Cheng, S. C. (2013). A Wiki-based teaching material development environment with
enhanced particle swarm optimization. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 16(2), 103–118.
McKenna, K. Y., & Bargh, J. A. (2000). Plan 9 from Cyberspace: The Implications of the Internet for personality and social
psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4(1), 57–75.
Moskaliuk, J., & Kimmerle, J. (2009). Using wikis for organizational learning: functional and psycho-social
principles. Development and Learning in Organizations: An International Journal, 23(4), 21–24.
Newlands, A., Anderson, A. H., & Mullin, J. (2003). Adapting communicative strategies to computer-mediated communication:
An Analysis of task performance and dialogue structure. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17(3), 325–348.
Rundquist, S. (1992). Indirectness: A Gender study of flouting Grice’s maxims. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(5), 431–449.
Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (2006). Knowledge building: Theory, pedagogy, and technology. In K. Sawyer (Ed.), The
Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (pp. 97–118). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Schwarz, N. (1996) Cognition and communication: Judgmental biases, research methods, and the logic of conversation.
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

197
 Schwarz, N. (1999). Self-reports: How the questions shape the answers. American Psychologist, 54(2), 93–105.
Slovic, P., & Fishhoff, B. (1977). On the psychology of experimental surprises. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human
Perception and Performance, 3(4), 544–551.
Sproull, L., & Kiesler, S. (1986). Reducing social context cues: Electronic mail in organizational communication. Management
Science, 32(11), 1492–1512.
Subramani, M. R., & Hahn, J. (2000, May). Examining the effectiveness of electronic group communication technologies: The
Role of the conversation interface. Paper presented at the Academy of Management Conference, Toronto. Retrieved from
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.14.999&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Surian, L., Baron-Cohen, S., & van der Lely, H. (1996). Are Children with autism deaf to Gricean Maxims? Cognitive
Neuropsychiatry, 1(1), 55–71.
Viégas, F. B., Wattenberg, M., & Dave, K. (2004). Studying cooperation and conflict between authors with history flow
visualizations. In Proceedings of the Special Interest Group on Computer–Human Interaction (SIGCHI) conference on Human
factors in computing systems (pp. 575-582). New York, NY: ACM Press.
Viégas, F. B., Wattenberg, M., Kriss, J., & van Ham, F. (2007). Talk before you type: Coordination in Wikipedia. In Proceedings
of the 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. doi:10.1109/HICSS.2007.511
Wichmann, A., & Rummel, N. (2013). Improving revision in wiki-based writing: Coordination pays off. Computers &
Education, 62, 262–270.
Woo, M., Chu, S., Ho, A., & Li, X. (2011). Using a Wiki to scaffold primary-school students’ collaborative writing. Journal of
Educational Technology & Society, 14(1), 43–54.
Yang, H. L., & Lai, C. Y. (2010). Motivations of Wikipedia content contributors. Computers in Human Behavior, 26(6), 1377–
1383.

198

View publication stats