Negative polarity in quantifiers evokes greater activation in language-related regions compared to negative polarity in adjectives

Agmon, Galit; Bain, Jonathan S.; Deschamps, Isabelle

doi:10.1007/s00221-021-06067-y

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…In contrast, the Polarity effect, taken as a proxy for the semantic evaluation (i.e., the third stage), was very focal in area 45 of Broca’s region. This location of the Polarity effect was later replicated by Agmon et al (2021) . The findings are in line with the earlier observation by McMillan et al (2005) that higher-order quantifiers that require an additional processing step induce higher activation in Broca’s region than first-order quantifiers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

“…Participants responded comparatively faster to “many” and accepted it more often than “few.” There was no semantic shift due to adaptation in any group. It has been suggested that the processing of negation (even if implicit in a negative quantifier) takes longer, because it is more costly, i.e., cognitively more demanding ( Just and Carpenter, 1971 ; Deschamps et al, 2015 ; Agmon et al, 2021 ; Grodzinsky et al, 2021 ). That this effect is found in PWA as well as in neurotypical individuals might indicate similar processing patterns in the patient group.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, the semantic evaluation of quantifier statements requires working memory capacity ( Caspari et al, 1998 ; Caplan and Waters, 1999 , 2001 ; Wright and Shisler, 2005 ; Potagas et al, 2011 ; Mayer and Murray, 2012 ; Wright and Fergadiotis, 2012 ) for linking verbal to visuospatial and executive information ( Baddeley, 2000 , 2003 ). Previous studies indicated that quantifier processing differs depending on their polarity, i.e., whether they are positive or negative ( Deschamps et al, 2015 ; Agmon et al, 2021 ; Grodzinsky et al, 2021 ): as indicated by longer reaction times ( Agmon et al, 2019 ) processing of negative quantifiers (like “few,” “less,” which are monotone decreasing; cf. Barwise and Cooper, 1988 ) seems to be cognitively more demanding than processing of their positive counterparts (like “many,” “more,” which are monotone increasing) due to the additional negation they contain (“less than half” = “not more than half”).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantifier processing and semantic flexibility in patients with aphasia

Reißner,

Grohmann,

Peiseler

et al. 2024

Front. Psychol.

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Processing of quantifiers such as “many” and “few” relies on number knowledge, linguistic abilities, and working memory. Negative quantifiers (e.g., “few,” “less than half”) induce higher processing costs than their positive counterparts. Furthermore, the meaning of some quantifiers is flexible and thus adaptable. Importantly, in neurotypical individuals, changing the meaning of one quantifier also leads to a generalized change in meaning for its polar opposite (e.g., the change of the meaning of “many” leads to the change of that of “few”). Here, we extended this research to patients with fluent and non-fluent aphasia after stroke. In two experiments, participants heard sentences of the type “Many/few of the circles are yellow/blue,” each followed by a picture with different quantities of blue and yellow circles. The participants judged whether the sentence adequately described the picture. Each experiment consisted of three blocks: a baseline block to assess the participants’ criteria for both quantifiers, a training block to shift the criteria for “many,” and a test block, identical to the baseline to capture any changes in quantifier semantics. In Experiment 1, the change of the meaning of “many” was induced by using adaptation to small numbers (20–50%) of circles of the named color. In Experiment 2, explicit feedback was given in the training block after each response to rate proportions of 40% (or higher) as “many,” whereas 40% is normally rather rated as “few.” The objective was to determine whether people with fluent or non-fluent aphasia were able to process quantifiers appropriately and whether generalized semantic flexibility was present after brain damage. Sixteen out of 21 patients were able to perform the task. People with fluent aphasia showed the expected polarity effect in the reaction times and shifted their criteria for “many” with generalization to the untrained quantifier “few.” This effect, however, was only obtained after explicit feedback (Experiment 2) but not by mere adaptation (Experiment 1). In contrast, people with non-fluent aphasia did not change the quantifier semantics in either experiment. This study contributes to gaining new insights into quantifier processing and semantic flexibility in people with aphasia and general underlying processing mechanisms.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantifier processing and semantic flexibility in patients with aphasia

Reißner,

Grohmann,

Peiseler

et al. 2024

Front. Psychol.

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“…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.…”

Section: Linguistic Representationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Negative sentences exhibit a sustained effect in delayed verification tasks.

Agmon¹,

Loewenstein²,

Grodzinsky³

2022

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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Negated sentences are known to be more cognitively taxing than positive ones (i.e., polarity effect). We present evidence that two factors contribute to the polarity effect in verification tasks: processing the sentence and verifying its truth value. To quantify the relative contribution of each, we used a delayed verification task. The results show that even when participants are given a considerable amount of time for processing the sentence prior to verification, the polarity effect is not entirely eliminated. We suggest that this sustained effect stems from a retained negation-containing representation in working memory.

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“…Negative polarity can be thought of as an operator triggering the "less than" computation on a linear scale (i.e., below some standard on a scale) (Agmon et al, 2019(Agmon et al, , 2021 and, when analyzed morphosyntactically, they contain a hidden negation in their underlying structure (Hackl, 2000;Penka, 2011) that evokes an interaction of the polarity effect with the truth-value of the sentence (Just and Carpenter, 1971;Grodzinsky et al, 2018;Agmon et al, 2019). Downward monotonicity, however, can be thought of as a logical/mathematical property whose environment serves to signal downward entailing contexts toward an empty-set scenario (Agmon et al, 2019;Bott et al, 2019).…”

Section: Negation Polarity Monotonicity and Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sources of cognitive cost in scalar implicature processing: A review

2022

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Research in Experimental Pragmatics has shown that deriving scalar implicatures involves effort and processing costs. This finding was robust and replicated across a wide variety of testing techniques, logical terms, populations, and languages. However, a question that remains disputed in the literature is whether this observed processing cost is a product of the inferential process itself or other logical properties whose computation taxes cognitive resources independently of the inferential mechanism. This paper has two objectives: one is to review the previous experimental work on scalar implicatures and how it evolved in the literature, and the other is to discuss possible factors that render computing scalar implicatures cognitively effortful. Implications and directions for future research are provided.

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Negative polarity in quantifiers evokes greater activation in language-related regions compared to negative polarity in adjectives

Cited by 4 publications

References 47 publications

Quantifier processing and semantic flexibility in patients with aphasia

Quantifier processing and semantic flexibility in patients with aphasia

Negative sentences exhibit a sustained effect in delayed verification tasks.

Sources of cognitive cost in scalar implicature processing: A review

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