Are scalar implicatures automatically processed and different for each individual? A mismatch negativity (MMN) study

Gricean Expectations in Online Sentence Comprehension: An ERP Study on the Processing of Scalar Inferences

“…One component that has been associated with the processing of quantified sentences in general is the N400 (Augurzky, Bott, Sternefeld, & Ulrich, ; Freunberger & Nieuwland, ; Urbach, DeLong, & Kutas, ; Urbach & Kutas, ). The N400 has been observed as a processing reflex of the so‐called underinformative sentences, that is, sentences with some used in a situation where the speaker could have used all instead (e.g., Some elephants are mammals ; see Hunt, Politzer‐Ahles, Gibson, Minai, & Fiorentino, ; Nieuwland, Ditman, & Kuperberg, ; Zhao, Liu, Chen, & Chen, ; but see Noveck & Posada, , for an effect going in the opposite direction).…”

You win some, you lose some: Comprehension and event-related potential evidence for L1 attrition

“…In relation to the above, it is prudent to point out that pragmatic inferencing has been associated with working memory when cognitive load is increased (Marty & Chemla, 2013), as well as with a subset of scores on the Autism Spectrum Quotient (ASQ) (Nieuwland, Ditman & Kuperberg, 2010; Zhao et al, 2014), the Systemizing Quotient-Revised (SQR) questionnaire (Barbet & Thierry, 2016), and even differences in methodological design across studies (e.g., Degen & Tanenhaus, 2011, 2015; Guasti, Chierchia, Crain, Foppolo, Gualmini & Meroni, 2005; Papafragou & Musolino, 2003; Pouscoulous, Noveck, Politzer & Bastide, 2007). While the implementation and results of cognitive tests like the ASQ in implicature work are not used as a diagnostic tool, nor do researchers explicitly claim that individuals who fail to derive SIs are cognitively or pragmatically amiss, such metrics are used to better understand why some people are naturally inclined to derive upper-bound meanings to scalar terms and others are not – especially when provided with the same experimental contexts.…”

Involvement of prefrontal cortex in scalar implicatures: evidence from magnetoencephalography

“…Another important difference between the present study and that of Shetreet and colleagues is that the previous study attributed two different loci of activation (inferior frontal and prefrontal) to two different cognitive processes (realising inferences or “implicature generation”, and comprehending infelicitous inferences or “implicature mismatch”), whereas the present experiment observed activation overlapping with both of these areas in the same contrast. Again, the differences in contrasts and methods between these two studies make it premature to draw strong conclusions; in particular, more research into the neural correlates of implicature violations using techniques like MEG is needed, as the present study did not test violations and previous electrophysiological studies using violation paradigms (e.g., Hunt et al, 2013 ; Nieuwland et al, 2010 ; Noveck & Posada, 2003 ; Panizza & Onea, 2014 ; Politzer-Ahles et al, 2013 ; Zhao et al, 2015 ) did not perform source localisation. As the spatial resolution of fMRI is superior to that of MEG, and the different regions identified in Shetreet et al ( 2014 ) are close together, care should be taken in interpreting apparent differences between the results of the present study and of that study.…”

“…The present study used MEG, which has the requisite combination of good spatial and temporal resolution, to investigate the neural substrates of realising scalar inferences. While several previous studies have used high temporal resolution techniques to examine inferencing (Chevallier, Bonnefond, Van der Henst, & Noveck, 2010 ; Hartshorne, Liem Azar, Snedeker, & Kim, 2014 ; Hunt, Politzer-Ahles, Gibson, Minai, & Fiorentino, 2013 ; Nieuwland, Ditman, & Kuperberg, 2010 ; Noveck & Posada, 2003 ; Politzer-Ahles, Fiorentino, Jiang, & Zhou, 2013 ; Sikos, Tomlinson, Traut, & Grodner, 2013 ; Zhao, Liu, Chen, & Chen, 2015 ), they have all used EEG, which has poorer spatial resolution; furthermore, other than Hartshorne et al ( 2014 ) and Sikos et al ( 2013 ), these studies have all used violation paradigms and/or examined words downstream of the quantifier. The present study is the first study with high spatial resolution to examine successful scalar inferencing while also controlling for the lexical issues described in the previous section.…”