Common verbal quantifiers: Usage and interpretation.

Borges, Marilyn A.; Sawyers, Barbara K.

doi:10.1037/h0036023

Cited by 24 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…It depends on whether they are interpreted as implying a constant proportion or a specific number. Since Borges and Sawyers (1974) have reported evidence in favor of constant proportionality, it will be assumed here that several and a few are asymmetrical.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Response bias in relational reasoning

Newstead

Pollard

Griggs

1986

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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In this study, we investigated the possibility that a response bias might be responsible for the typical pattern of responding observed when people reason about artificial relationships, especially set inclusions. Experiment 1 provided strong evidence for the proposed bias, since subjects tended to respond as if an unspecified relationship were symmetrical and increasingly intransitive over inferential distance. However, Experiment 2, using extended syllogisms, showed that not all relationships lead to such responding. Although the majority of the quantified relationships were responded to as if they were symmetrical, most were also regarded as transitive. Thus, the response bias idea, although of some interest, cannot provide a complete explanation of performance on these tasks.In the literature on reasoning, there is a longstanding dispute between the rationalists and nonrationalists. The rationalists believe that reasoning is inherently logical and that errors can be explained by misinterpretation of the premises, whereas the nonrationalists believe that errors can be attributed to nonlogical response biases.In the present paper, we attempt to make a contribution to this dispute by exploring the existence of a nonlogical response bias that may explain performance on a variety of reasoning tasks involving artificial relationships. The bias in question is a tendency to assume that any relationship is (1) symmetrical and (2) increasingly intransitive over inferential distance. This can be illustrated best by considering the schematic relationship A-B, B-C, C-D, where A, B, C, and D are entities and "-" depicts any relationship connecting them. To say that the relationship is symmetrical means that subjects will assume that the relationship holds both ways, so that, for example, B-A is true as well as A-B. To say that the relationship is intransitive implies that transitive inferences will not tend to be accepted as true: Subjects will tend not to accept conclusions such as A-C or B-D. To say that the relationship is increasingly intransitive over inferential distance means that as the number of steps required to make a transitive inference increases, subjects will be less likely to accept the inference. Thus, in the above example, A-D would be less likely to be accepted than A-C or B-D.Although such a bias has not been discussed previously in the literature, there is in fact a range of evidence consistent with it. One line of evidence comes from Tsal (1977), who gave subjects problems involving a relationThe authors thank Ray Burke for his assistance in generating the experimenta materials for Experiment 2. Requests for reprints should be sent to S. E. Newstead. Department of Psychology. Plymouth Polytechnic. Drake Circus. Plymouth. Devon PL4 8AA, England.ship among four people, but the actual nature of the relationship was not specified (it was denoted by a short line, as in the schematic example above). The majority of subjects (72 %) assumed that the relationship was symmetrical, and 76% assumed it was intran...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Response bias in relational reasoning

Newstead

Pollard

Griggs

1986

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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“…It has been widely suggested that different quantifiers may be related to various presuppositions. For example, the use of not many has been assumed to be a denial of the (pre)supposition that many would have been the case (Wason,1%5), and Clark (1976) has suggested that few may similarly deny that many is the case. Also, only afew has been treated as being a tacit denial that more was the case (Wierzbicka, 1986).…”

Section: Prior Expectations and Higher-order Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…The connection between such expressions and the amounts or proportions which they might be thought of as denoting has been the subject of extensive investigation (e.g. Bass, Cascio & O'Connor, 1974;Borges & Sawyer, 1974;Newstead, Pollard & Riezebos, 1987), along with parallel investigations of frequency adverbs and probability terms (e.g. Clark, 1990;Newstead & Collis, 1987;Pepper & Prytulak, 1974).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prior expectation and the interpretation of natural language quantifiers

Moxey

Sanford

1993

European Journal of Cognitive Psychology

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The interpretation of natural language quantifiers depends, in part, on one's prior expectations about what the proportion being described might be. This hypothesis is tested empirically, by comparing the interpretation of 10 different quantifier expressions in three contexts which contained proportions about which subjects' expectations were reliably different (Experiment 1). It is further argued that quantifiers perform many functions which cannot be observed by considering only the proportion(s) denoted by a quantifier. The experimental evidence presented shows that quantifiers can provide information about what the user of the quantifier had expected before "knowing the facts" (Experiment 2). It is also clear that when writers produce a quantifier, they can reveal their assumptions about the prior expectations held by their readers (Experiment 2).

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“…Borges & Sawyers, 1974) have shown that the interpretations of quantifiers of amount, such as some, several, many, and so on, are affected quantity of the object available, or by properties of the objects involved (Hbrmann, 1983). For example, both Borges and Sawyers and Cohen et al had subjects take a few, some, several, etc., marbles from trays containing differing numbers of marbles.…”

Section: Wallsten Budescu Rapoportq Zwick and Forsyth (1985)mentioning

confidence: 99%