The Use of Conditionals in Inducements and Deterrents

Fillenbaum, Samuel

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511753466.010

Cited by 143 publications

(56 citation statements)

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“…This is broadly in line with the analysis of unless as 'only ifp, not q' in inducements and deterrents ('Unless you pay me some money I will talk to the newspapers') proposed by Fillenbaum (1986). Such inducements are, of course, an implicit form of instruction.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Reading to do: Creating contingent action plans

Wright¹,

Hull²

1988

British J of Psychology

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Three experiments are reported which examine the action plans readers create for written instructions containing conditionals (if, if not, unless). Experiment 1 shows, from the pattern of errors and latencies with True/False items, that if not is represented as a positive action and negative condition, whereas unless is represented as a negative action and positive condition ('Do not if.. .'), even when the materials permit other recoding options. Experiment 2 focuses on unless and suggests that errors arise mainly from recoding operations, whereas speed of response is determined by the clause order used for the instruction. Experiment 3 introduces prohibitions ('Do not do X'). These impair performance with if and if not but facilitate performance with unless. This is consistent with readers representing unless in action plans as 'Do not if', the reader-generated representation of the negative action being cancelled by the explicit prohibition in the instruction. The practical implications of these findings are pointed out.Relatively few studies have explored how readers transform their understanding of a text into a plan for action. Much of the focus of reading research has been on educational settings, either the acquisition of the reading skill itself or of other information through reading. Nevertheless, Sticht (1 985) has shown that, whereas most of the reading tasks in school involve 'reading to learn', most of the reading done at work is 'reading to do'. Here people not only have to understand what they read but have to be able to apply the knowledge gained from reading. In order to know how to write instructions that can be easily followed, there is a practical need for understanding more about how people create action plans on the basis of what they read. The studies reported here seek to open up such investigations and are particularly concerned with instructions involving negative conditionals. Action plansNorman (1 981) argued that action sequences are generally represented as hierarchies of schemas, where the superordinate schema corresponds to intention and the subordinate schemas are triggered by appropriate conditions. Although helpful, this notion of hierarchical schemas leaves unspecified the way positive and negative actions (prohibitions) may be represented. The tacit implication is that similar hierarchies will be created for both kinds of instructions. However, Dixon (1982Dixon ( , 1985 has shown that readers' representation of action plans, at the level of 188 P . Wright and A . J. Hull subordinate schemas, can vary both with the surface structure characteristics of the verbal instruction and the details of the task to be carried out. Experiment 1 examined whether readers exploit the recoding options available within written instructions in order to avoid explicitly representing negative elements in the action plans they create. ExceptionalipNegative conditionals (except, unless, if not) are an interesting case for several reasons.Sentences containing various kinds of negation have been ass...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Reading to do: Creating contingent action plans

Wright¹,

Hull²

1988

British J of Psychology

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“…For example, we know that reasoners routinely make invited inferences from certain classes of conditional statements, such as conditional promises and counterfactual conditionals (e.g., Fillenbaum, 1974;Geis & Zwicky, 1971;Thompson & Byrne, 2002). We also know that understanding other types of conditional statements, such as inducements (e.g., if you do not give me your wallet, I will shoot you; if you clean your room, you may have ice cream), requires an initial assumption about the desirability of q, similar to the first step we have proposed for the comprehension of persuasions and dissuasions (see Fillenbaum, 1986, for a review). Similarly, Bonnefon and Hilton (2004) found that consequential conditionals with a positive consequent (e.g., ''if Mary goes to the party, she will meet up with all her best friends'') invite an inference about the truth of the antecedent (i.e., Mary will go to the party), whereas negative consequents (e.g., ''if Mary goes to the party, she will only meet with people she dislikes'') invite an inference about the falsity of the antecedent (i.e., Mary will not go the party).…”

Section: Persuasions Dissuasions and Invited Inferencesmentioning

confidence: 96%

Persuading and dissuading by conditional argument☆

Thompson

Evans

Handley

2005

Journal of Memory and Language

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“…The three groups of children were given MP, AC, DA, and MT problems for both abstract and concrete unless problems. In his account of unless, Fillenbaum (1976Fillenbaum ( , 1986 strongly advocated that the semantic content is important. In daily life, assertions with unless would be better understandable when they express a conditional threat.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, Geis (1973) holds that the meaning of unless is more similar to except if than to if not. In a similar way, Fillenbaum (1976Fillenbaum ( , 1986 proposed only if as the preferred understanding for unless sentences. In other words, although unless and if-then are closely related in terms of their logical meaning, people do not reason with them in the same way.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dramatic Effect of Content on Children's Unless Reasoning: Pragmatic Modulation or Reconstruction?

Schaeken

Sevenants

Madruga³

2007

PsycEXTRA Dataset

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Reasoning on the basis of sentences with the connective unless has only rarely been studied by cognitive scientists. Our investigation starts from the mental model theory of reasoning (e.g., Johnson-Laird, 1983). An assertion such as not-p unless q has the same truth conditions as if p then q, but we argue that it is represented differently, that is, the initial mental models for these two connectives are not the same. The experiment is the first to investigate the role of age (by testing three age groups: nine-year-old, eleven-year-old and thirteen-year-old children) on reasoning with unless. Other investigated factors are type of conditional (if-then vs. unless), and content (by comparing abstract and concrete problems). We discuss the results in terms of recent modifications to the original mental model theory.

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The Use of Conditionals in Inducements and Deterrents

Cited by 143 publications

References 0 publications

Reading to do: Creating contingent action plans

Reading to do: Creating contingent action plans

Persuading and dissuading by conditional argument☆

The Dramatic Effect of Content on Children's Unless Reasoning: Pragmatic Modulation or Reconstruction?

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