Reactions to the statements made during an informal conversation are l
ikely to be influenced by perceptions of their pragmatic implications
(i.e., why the statements occurred) as well as their literal implicati
ons for the persons and objects to which they refer. Recipients' sensi
tivity to a statement's pragmatic meaning may depend on [a) their info
rmation processing objectives at the time they encounter the statement
and (b) the extent to wh ich the statement violates normative expecta
tions concerning the content and style of messages that are typically
transmitted in the social context in which it occurs. These hypotheses
are supported by research in which subjects were asked to form impres
sions of persons on the basis of information exchanged during conversa
tions in which they both did and did not actively participate. The cog
nitive mediators of the impressions formed in informal conversations a
re quite different from those that have usually been investigated in p
revious research on person memory and judgment, in which only the sema
ntic implications of the information presented typically come into pla
y.