Measuring the cognitive cost of downward monotonicity by controlling for negative polarity

Abstract

Our goal in this study was to behaviorally characterize the property (or properties) that render negative quantifiers more complex in processing compared to their positive counterparts (e.g. the pair few/many). We examined two sources: (i) negative polarity; (ii) entailment reversal (aka downward monotonicity). While negative polarity can be found in other pairs in language such as dimensional adjectives (e.g. the pair small/large), only in quantifiers does negative polarity also reverse the entailment pattern of the sentence. By comparing the processing traits of negative quantifiers with those of non-monotone expressions that contain negative adjectives, using a verification task and measuring reaction times, we found that negative polarity is cognitively costly, but in downward monotone quantifiers it is even more so. We therefore conclude that both negative polarity and downward monotonicity contribute to the processing complexity of negative quantifiers.

Negative sentences exhibit a sustained effect in delayed verification tasks.

“…Context cannot explain the well-known interaction of polarity with truth value: The polarity effect is smaller for false sentences (i.e., mismatch between sentence and picture) than it is for true sentences. This highly replicable finding suggests that truth value also is an important factor (Agmon et al, 2019;Carpenter & Just, 1975;Just & Carpenter, 1971;Krueger, 1972;Mac-Donald et al, 1992;Mayo et al, 2004;Tucker et al, 2018).…”

“…A unified account that explains both the delayed effect of sentential negation and of negative quantifiers would be more parsimonious and hence desirable 8 . Currently, there is one such suggestion for a unified account: Both negations share the logical property of reversing entailment patterns, which adds to their representational complexity (Agmon et al, 2019; Deschamps et al, 2015). In the following examples, adding either sentential negation (Sentence 1b) or a negative quantifier (Sentence 1c) changes the direction of the logical entailment presented in Sentence 1a: 1a.…”

“…This sensitivity in language usage possibly signals a similar sensitivity in cognitive processes. Indeed, the reverse direction of entailment was shown to have a cognitive impact on RT and on brain signals (Agmon et al, 2019(Agmon et al, , 2021. Maintaining an opposite entailment pattern might add to the WM load, for example if part of the representation includes a feature that signals a nondefault direction of entailment.…”

“…This hidden negation can be detected by various linguistic tests (Chierchia, 2013; Klima, 1964; Penka, 2011). Indeed, as with sentential negation, negative quantifiers have been shown to evoke cognitive effects relative to their positive counterparts: prolonged response times in verification tasks (Agmon et al, 2019; Deschamps et al, 2015; Just & Carpenter, 1971) and more complex reference patterns in discourse (Moxey & Sanford, 1986; Sanford et al, 2007). The negative quantifier few has also been shown to evoke ERP patterns similar to those of sentential negation (Xiang et al, 2016).…”

Sources of cognitive cost in scalar implicature processing: A review

“…The authors of these studies agree that statements quantified by negative quantifiers are harder to process and are more error prone in comprehension compared to statements quantified by positive quantifiers. More recent research about the processing complexity of negative quantifiers showed that both (i) negative polarity and (ii) downward monotonicity are two logical properities that make the processing of negative quantifiers cognitively more complex relative to their positive antonyms (Agmon et al, 2019).…”