A ‘no’ with a trace of ‘yes’: A mouse-tracking study of negative sentence processing

Darley, Emily; Kent, Christopher; Kazanina, Nina

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104084

Cited by 7 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…It could, for example, be that since self-paced reading is a less natural way of reading than on-screen reading in rapid visual serial presentation (as used, e.g., in comparable EEG studies), the burden on working memory of remembering a complex picture, forming (pragmatic expectations) and reading text in a self-paced manner is too onerous a task. In fact, in a recent study employing mousetracking, Darley et al (2020) found that processing sentences against a visual context becomes more costly the higher the number of pragmatically-licensed sentence continuations, such that, in their study, higher numbers of possible continuations led to a decrease in task accuracy, an increase in the speed of responses, as well as higher degrees of attraction to foil responses in the measured mouse trajectories. The authors concluded that " [.…”

Section: Processing Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…As far as linguistic prediction is concerned, studies have shown that material can be pre-activated at different levels of linguistic representation, from phonologically- and lexically-driven pre-activation to pre-activation derived from syntactic and semantic cues (e.g., Mani and Huettig, 2012 ; Boudewyn et al, 2015 ; Urbach et al, 2015 ; Kuperberg and Jaeger, 2016 ), although some of these findings—particularly with respect to phonological prediction—have failed to replicate in more recent studies (e.g., Nieuwland et al, 2020 ; see also Kuperberg and Jaeger, 2016 for a detailed discussion of the different sorts of prediction potentially involved in predictive language processing). As for pragmatics, many studies have provided evidence that high-level semantic and pragmatic prediction occurs while people process language, from the processing of negation (e.g., Nieuwland, 2016 ; Haase et al, 2019 ; see also Scappini et al, 2015 ; Darley et al, 2020 ) to the processing of sentences containing potentially pragmatic cues such as the scalar quantifier some (e.g., Nieuwland et al, 2010 ; Augurzky et al, 2019 ). Although the bulk of the evidence stems from neurolinguistic studies, other studies have drawn on behavioral methods such as eye-tracking (e.g., Degen and Tanenhaus, 2016 ; Scholman et al, 2017 ; Huang and Snedeker, 2018 ) and self-paced reading (e.g., Bicknell and Rohde, 2009 ; Bergen and Grodner, 2012 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pragmatic Prediction in the Processing of Referring Expressions Containing Scalar Quantifiers

Silva

Franke

2021

Front. Psychol.

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Previous research in cognitive science and psycholinguistics has shown that language users are able to predict upcoming linguistic input probabilistically, pre-activating material on the basis of cues emerging from different levels of linguistic abstraction, from phonology to semantics. Current evidence suggests that linguistic prediction also operates at the level of pragmatics, where processing is strongly constrained by context. To test a specific theory of contextually-constrained processing, termed pragmatic surprisal theory here, we used a self-paced reading task where participants were asked to view visual scenes and then read descriptions of those same scenes. Crucially, we manipulated whether the visual context biased readers into specific pragmatic expectations about how the description might unfold word by word. Contrary to the predictions of pragmatic surprisal theory, we found that participants took longer reading the main critical term in scenarios where they were biased by context and pragmatic constraints to expect a given word, as opposed to scenarios where there was no pragmatic expectation for any particular referent.

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Section: Processing Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pragmatic Prediction in the Processing of Referring Expressions Containing Scalar Quantifiers

Silva

Franke

2021

Front. Psychol.

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“…It stands to reason that inferring what states of affairs are truth-makers when considering the result of composing a sentence meaning with identity would typically involve less computational resources compared to when the composition is with negation, because the latter operation requires extra steps of inference. Beyond the reading time differences reported in Matthews et al (1980), further evidence for this cost of computing the actual state of affairs is reported in Darley, Kent, and Kazanina (2020) and shows up indirectly in individual difference research, such as Reuter et al (2018), andMargolin (2015); also indirectly in McLeod et al (1978) and Matthews et al (1980), who find that participants with better visual abilities are more inclined to adopt the one-step procedure.…”

Section: Two Procedures For Verifying Negative Sentencesmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Further support for the composite view can be found in evidence from a wide range of paradigms beyond SPV tasks, which indicate active representation of the positive argument of negation. These include probe recognition (Hasson & Glucksberg, 2006;Kaup et al, 2007a), ERP (Dudschig et al, 2019;Fischler et al, 1983), visual world (Nordmeyer & Frank, 2014;Orenes et al, 2014) and mouse-tracking (Dale & Duran, 2011;Darley et al, 2020).…”

Section: Composite Vs Interpretive Theories Of Negation Comprehensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Verifying Negative Sentences

Wang

Sun

Tian

et al. 2021

J Psycholinguist Res

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In the long history of psycholinguistic research on verifying negative sentences, an often-reported finding is that participants take longer to correctly judge negative sentences true than false, while being faster to judge their positive counterparts true (e.g. Clark & Chase, Cogn Psychol 3(3):472−517, 1972; Carpenter & Just, Psychol Rev 82(1):45–73, 1975). While many linguists and psycholinguists have strongly advocated the idea that the costs and complexity of negation can be explained by appeal to context, context-based approaches have not been able to provide a satisfying account of this polarity*truth-value interaction. By contrast, the alternative theory of negation processing, which says that negation is processed by separately representing the positive, does provide a plausible account. Our proposals provide a means for reconciliation between the two views since we argue that negation is a strong cue to a positive context. Here we present our account of why and when negation is often apparently processed via the positive. We review many of the factors that are seen to be at play in sentence verification involving negation. We present evidence that participants’ adoption of the positive-first procedure in sentence-picture verification tasks is conditioned by context.

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“…Thus, artificial contexts used in research could explain the negation effect. Nevertheless, there are some studies that have found that negative sentences take longer to be processed than affirmative ones even when they are presented in a supportive context (see Darley et al, 2020;Orenes et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Looking at” Negation: Faster Processing for Symbolic Rather Than Iconic Representations

Orenes

2021

J Psycholinguist Res

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Many studies have shown the double processing of negation, suggesting that negation integration into sentence meaning is delayed. This contrasts with some researches that have found that such integration is rather immediate. The present study contributes to this debate. Affirmative and negative compound sentences (e.g., “because he was not hungry, he did not order a salad”) were presented orally in a visual world paradigm while four printed words were on the screen: salad, no salad, soup, and no soup. The eye-tracking data showed two different fixation patterns for negative causal assertions, which are linked to differences in the representation and inferential demands. One indicates that negation is integrated immediately, as people look at the explicit negation (e.g., no salad) very early. The other, in which people look at the alternate (e.g., soup) much later, indicates that what is delayed in time is the representation of the alternate. These results support theories that combine iconic and symbolic representations, such as the model theory.

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A ‘no’ with a trace of ‘yes’: A mouse-tracking study of negative sentence processing

Cited by 7 publications

References 46 publications

Pragmatic Prediction in the Processing of Referring Expressions Containing Scalar Quantifiers

Pragmatic Prediction in the Processing of Referring Expressions Containing Scalar Quantifiers

Verifying Negative Sentences

“Looking at” Negation: Faster Processing for Symbolic Rather Than Iconic Representations

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