Quantification, prediction, and the online impact of sentence truth-value: Evidence from event-related potentials.

ABSTRACT: Do negative quantifiers like "few" reduce people's ability to rapidly evaluate incoming language with respect to world knowledge? Previous research has addressed this question by examining whether online measures of quantifier comprehension match the "final" interpretation reflected in verification judgments. However, these studies confounded quantifier valence with its impact on the unfolding expectations for upcoming words, yielding mixed results. In the current event-related potentials study, participants read negative and positive quantifier sentences matched on cloze probability and on truth-value (e.g., "Most/Few gardeners plant their flowers during the spring/winter for best results"). Regardless of whether participants explicitly verified the sentences or not, true-positive quantif

SUBMITTER: Nieuwland MS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4734228 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature