文章基本信息

标题：Competition and Symmetry in an Artificial Word Learning Task
本地全文：下载
作者：Buccola, Brian ; Dautriche, Isabelle ; Chemla, Emmanuel 等
期刊名称：Frontiers in Psychology
电子版ISSN：1664-1078
出版年度：2018
卷号：9
页码：1-8
DOI：10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02176
出版社：Frontiers Media
摘要：Natural language involves competition. The sentences we choose to utter activate alternative sentences (those we chose not to utter), which hearers typically infer to be false. Hence, as a first approximation, the more alternatives a sentence activates, the more inferences it will trigger. But a closer look at the theory of competition shows that this is not quite true and that under specific circumstances, so-called symmetric alternatives cancel each other out. We present an artificial word learning experiment in which participants learn words that may enter into competition with one another. The results show that a mechanism of competition takes place, and that the subtle prediction that alternatives trigger inferences, and may stop triggering them after a point due to symmetry, is borne out. This study provides a minimal testing paradigm to reveal competition and some of its subtle characteristics in human languages and beyond.
关键词：competition; Symmetry; alternatives; Psycholinguistics; semantics; pragmatics