\u201cLooking at\u201d Negation: Faster Processing for Symbolic Rather Than Iconic Representations

Isabel Orenes

doi:10.1007/s10936-021-09797-w

Abstract

Many studies have shown the double processing of negation, suggesting that negation integration into sentence meaning is delayed. This contrasts with some researches that have found that such integration is rather immediate. The present study contributes to this debate. Affirmative and negative compound sentences (e.g., “because he was not hungry, he did not order a salad”) were presented orally in a visual world paradigm while four printed words were on the screen: salad, no salad, soup, and no soup. The eye-tracking data showed two different fixation patterns for negative causal assertions, which are linked to differences in the representation and inferential demands. One indicates that negation is integrated immediately, as people look at the explicit negation (e.g., no salad) very early. The other, in which people look at the alternate (e.g., soup) much later, indicates that what is delayed in time is the representation of the alternate. These results support theories that combine iconic and symbolic representations, such as the model theory.

Highlights

Negation is present in all natural and artificial languages, and children from an early age use and understand it
The results of the present study corroborated that there are at least two different ways to process negative sentences that are related to its representation: the representation of the explicit negation is fast, while its alternate is slow because an inference is necessary
The advantage of the representation of the explicit negation could accelerate its processing and save cognitive resources, but this symbolic representation is harder to remember and understand (Fillenbaum, 1966; Hasson & Glucksberg 2006; Kaup, 2001; Kaup & Zwaan, 2003; Lea & Mulligan, 2002; MacDonald & Just, 1989; Mayo et al, 2014). This leads people to represent the alternate when it is available, as its processing is slow, its comprehension and memory improve (Beltrán et al, 2008; Orenes et al, 2014). These results fit well with the model theory because it predicts at least two representations for negation depending on the availability of the alternate: iconic that corresponds to the alternate and symbolic, that corresponds to the explicit negation (e.g., Beltrán et al, 2008; Khemlani et al, 2012; 2014; Orenes et al, 2014)

Summary

Introduction

Negation is present in all natural and artificial languages, and children from an early age use and understand it. In Orenes et al (2014), participants heard negative sentences (e.g., “the figure is not blue”) that followed binary contexts (e.g., “the figure could be blue or yellow”), while their looks towards four colour figures (blue, yellow, red and green) on the screen were registered Results showed that they looked at the figure corresponding to the actual situation through the alternate (e.g., a yellow figure) in a relatively late time window, around 1500 ms, confirming thereby that negation integration is delayed. People build a text-based representation through the meaning of words and the grammatical relations amongst them, and second they construct a mental model of the described situation (see Johnson-Laird, 1983; Zwaan & Radvansky, 1998) While they just represent the facts that are described for causal assertions, they represent the conjecture beside the factual situation for the counterfactuals.

Participants

Procedure

Results and Discussion

General Discussion