Counterfactual and Semifactual Conditionals Prime Alternative Possibilities.

Santamaría, Carlos; Espino, Orlando; Byrne, Ruth M. J.

doi:10.1037/0278-7393.31.5.1149

Cited by 103 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Additionally, within the mental model theory of conditionals, Santamaria, Espino & Byrne (2005), show that a counterfactual conditional statement primes both factual and counterfactual possibilities whereas a factual conditional primes only the real-world possibility. The effects reported here, where RW-inconsistent information takes longer to process than CW-inconsistent information, support the idea that both possibilities are primed by a counterfactual context while only one is primed by a factual conditional.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anomalies in real and counterfactual worlds: An eye-movement investigation

Ferguson¹,

Sanford²

2008

Journal of Memory and Language

102

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anomalies in real and counterfactual worlds: An eye-movement investigation

Ferguson¹,

Sanford²

2008

Journal of Memory and Language

102

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“…. '';Ferguson, 2012) suggest that readers do make factual inferences from counterfactuals (i.e., that it had not rained that morning and Susan had not rushed to work) yet maintain access to both counterfactual and factual interpretations (as evidenced by anomaly detection responses for counterfactual conditions compared to a factually consistent condition; see also de Vega et al, 2007;Santamaria, Espino, & Byrne, 2005).…”

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confidence: 99%

“If a lion could speak …”: Online sensitivity to propositional truth-value of unrealistic counterfactual sentences

Nieuwland

2013

Journal of Memory and Language

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People can establish whether a sentence is hypothetically true even if what it describes can never be literally true given the laws of the natural world. Two event-related potential (ERP) experiments examined electrophysiological responses to sentences about unrealistic counterfactual worlds that require people to construct novel conceptual combinations and infer their consequences as the sentence unfolds in time (e.g., “If dogs had gills…”). Experiment 1 established that without this premise, described consequences (e.g., “Dobermans would breathe under water …”) elicited larger N400 responses than real-world true sentences. Incorporation of the counterfactual premise in Experiment 2 generated similar N400 effects of propositional truth-value in counterfactual and real-world sentences, suggesting that the counterfactual context eliminated the interpretive problems posed by locally anomalous sentences. This result did not depend on cloze probability of the sentences. In contrast to earlier findings regarding online comprehension of logical operators and counterfactuals, these results show that ongoing processing can be directly impacted by propositional truth-value, even that of unrealistic counterfactuals

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“…In our study we use a comprehension task to infer what kind of possibilities people keep in mind when they understand conditional sentences. We make use of a priming methodology (see Santamaría & Espino, 2002;Santamaría, Espino, & Byrne, 2005) to find out what kinds of mental representations people have in mind when they read different conditionals.…”

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confidence: 99%

Initial Models in Conditionals: Evidence from Priming

Espino

Santamaría

2008

Span. J. Psychol.

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We examined the comprehension of different types of conditionals. We measured the reading time of sentences primed by different types of conditionals (Experiments 1 and 2). We found that the participants read not-p and not-q faster when it was primed by the conditional form p if q and they were slower to read p and q when it was primed by the conditional form p only if q. This effect disappeared in the second experiment, where the order of the elements was reversed (q and p and not-q and not-p). These results suggest that the conditional form p if q elicits an initial representation "from p to q" with two possibilities, while the conditional form p only if q elicits a reverse representation with only one possibility. The third experiment showed that there were effects of the order only for the conditional if p then q, which confirms the reverse representation hypothesis. We discuss the implications of these results for different theories of conditional comprehension. Keywords: lexical conditional reasoning, priming, suppositional theory, mental modelExaminamos la comprensión de diferentes tipos de condicionales. Medimos el tiempo de lectura de frases facilitadas por diferentes tipos de condicionales (experimentos 1 y 2). Encontramos que los participantes leían no-p y no-q más rápidamente cuando era facilitada por la forma condicional p si q y que eran más lentos leyendo p y q cuando era facilitada por la forma condicional p sólo si q. Este efecto desapareció en el segundo experimento, donde el orden de los elementos se invirtió (q y p y no-q y no-p). Estos resultados sugieren que la forma del condicional p si q elicita una representación inicial "desde p a q" con dos posibilidades, mientras que la forma condicional p sólo si q elicita una representación inversa con una sola posibilidad. El tercer experimento mostró que había efectos de orden sólo para el condicional si p entonces q, lo cual confirma la hipótesis de la representación inversa. Se comentan las implicaciones de estos resultados para las diversas teorías de comprensión condicional.

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Counterfactual and Semifactual Conditionals Prime Alternative Possibilities.

Cited by 103 publications

References 24 publications

Anomalies in real and counterfactual worlds: An eye-movement investigation

Anomalies in real and counterfactual worlds: An eye-movement investigation

“If a lion could speak …”: Online sensitivity to propositional truth-value of unrealistic counterfactual sentences

Initial Models in Conditionals: Evidence from Priming

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