Abstract
This study examines effects of memory load on the processing of scalar implicature via a dual-task paradigm using reading span and self-paced reading. Results indicate that participants showed online sensitivity to underinformative sentences (e.g., Some birds have wings and beaks) at the end of the sentence. This online sensitivity disappeared when participants were under increased memory load. Moreover, participants in the memory-load condition did not show sensitivity to semantically false sentences (e.g., All books have pictures and drawings). These results pose important conceptual and methodological questions of (1) whether the processing cost associated with scalar implicatures can be attributed to general proposition evaluation rather than scalar implicature derivation per se (Bale et al. in Semant Linguist Theory 20:525–543, 2010), and (2) to what degree memory load affects implicature computation only. I conclude with a discussion of these two issues for future research.
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Notes
Opinions differ about the nature or source of the cognitive effort associated with scalar implicature computation (e.g., short-term memory, attention, working memory, or ability to access scale mates). For discussion on this issue, see Bott et al. 2012; De Neys and Schaeken 2007; Dieussaert et al. 2011; Marty and Chemla, 2013; Marty et al. 2013).
The main reason for focusing on some in this study is the following. Most previous studies on memory load effects in scalar implicature computation examined the implicature with some. By focusing on some, the results from this study can be directly compared to findings from previous studies. Another reason for choosing some for this study is practical. This study looks at universal statements, which can be constructed more easily with quantifiers (e.g., All/Some elephants have trunks) than with other scalar items like < or, and > , < might, must > , or < start, finish > .
It is generally agreed that scalar implicature computation involves two steps: decision making and computation. However, opinions differ about the nature of the processes. See Marty and Chemla (2013, p. 2, footnote 2) for a discussion of different approaches to this issue.
With respect to scalar inferences for positively scalar words, negative information is expressed implicitly, or cognitively (Clark 1970). For discussion on the processing cost associated with sentences with semantically or syntactically expressed negative information, see Bierwisch (1967) and Heim (2006).
Van Tiel et al. (2019b) also examined the processing time effect (Experiment 2) and found that processing time does not have effects on scalar implicature computation. Since this paper is concerned with memory load effect, I discuss only their experiment on the memory load effect.
There were two older participants (ages 64 and 66) in this study. Although age could be a factor in psycholinguistic experiments like the one in this study, the inclusion or exclusion of their data did not change the overall results. Thus, the data collected from all participants were included in the analysis.
See Jegerski (2014) for discussion on issues related to the absolute cutoff method.
A reviewer raised a question about possible reasons for the interaction effect of Quantifier * Statement type in Region 1 in the no-reading span group. Note that there should not be any residual reading time differences among sentences in Region 1. Any reading time differences in Region 1 in the test sentence could be related to the preceding context sentence. However, this effect in Region 1 was not observed in the reading span group. I cannot provide any satisfactory explanation for this but note that there were more participants (n = 43) in the reading-span group than in the no-reading span group (n = 35). The absence of the effect with a larger number of participants suggests that it might be spurious.
I would like to thank a reviewer for pointing out this possibility.
I would like to thank a reviewer for this suggestion.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank the UW-Madison Second Language Acquisition Lab assistants, Shuo “Maggie” Feng, Glenn Starr, Hyun Bae, and Yige Chen, for their help with material construction and data collection. Shuo “Maggie” Feng is now at Peking University as an assistant professor of Applied Linguistics.
Funding
Support for this research was provided by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education with funding from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (Award # MSN215833).
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This study was approved by the Education and Social/Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review Board (ED/SBS IRB) of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Approval # 2014-0389). All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with federal regulations, state laws, and local and University policies as well as the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Cho, J. Memory Load Effect in the Real-Time Processing of Scalar Implicatures. J Psycholinguist Res 49, 865–884 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-020-09726-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-020-09726-3