Temporal Priority Research Articles

A Psychological Approach to Causal Understanding and the Temporal Asymmetry

This article provides a conceptual account of causal understanding by connecting current psychological research on time and causality with philosophical debates on the causal asymmetry. I argue that causal relations are viewed as asymmetric because they are understood in temporal terms. I investigate evidence from causal learning and reasoning in both children and adults: causal perception, the temporal priority principle, and the use of temporal cues for causal inference. While this account does not suffice for correct inferences of causal structure, I show it to serve as a preliminary understanding of causal concepts as asymmetric, that later incorporates other types of evidence (leading up to difference-making, or causal processes). This approach supplies causal models with an asymmetric concept of causation that underlies hypotheses about causal structure, as I will illustrate from the framework of the knowledge-based causal induction model. I further argue for an integrating perspective, showing how the understanding of causes as preceding their effects underlies both psychological models and philosophical debates over time and the causal asymmetry, particularly regarding problem cases such as simultaneous causation or backwards causation, and the conceptual connection between causation and action.

Character and Causation: Hume's Philosophy of Action by Constantine Sandis

Reviewed by: Character and Causation: Hume's Philosophy of Action by Constantine Sandis David Landy Constantine Sandis. Character and Causation: Hume's Philosophy of Action. London and New York: Routledge, 2019. Pp. xiii +148. Cloth, $140.00. Constantine Sandis's suggestive new book consists of a series of discrete studies of aspects of Hume's philosophical system that culminate in an argument for the conclusion that "on Hume's view . . . we are only morally responsible for that subset of actions that have been motivated by our character traits" (90). That final conclusion is the end of a wide-ranging and systematic argument that feels too compressed in the scant one-hundred and twenty-three pages in which it is presented, especially since the philosophical and exegetical theses that Sandis presents along the way are intriguing and receive just enough support to make the reader long for a more robust consideration of them. Sandis's grand argument begins with the familiar approach of understanding Hume's Copy Principle as placing strict limits on the possible contents of our mental representations, thereby requiring Hume to revise our understanding of our own ideas. Sandis dubs this "soft conceptual revisionism" (2). In the early chapters of the book, the most important result that this approach yields is Hume's revision of our concept of necessary connection [End Page 406] to comprise only constant conjunction and temporal priority. The upshot of Sandis's discussion is to earn Hume a sense of 'necessity' and 'causation' that meets his criterion of meaningfulness and grounds the aforementioned account of action. Actions turn out to be those bodily movements with certain causes, properly construed, as either acts of will or character traits. Another important piece of Sandis's argument is his provocative claim that "a belief just is the feeling or sentiment accompanying an idea" (23), which "firm conception consists in feeling that something is the case" (24). At first blush, Sandis appears to make the radically heterodox claim that Hume holds that there is a distinct impression that is annexed to, accompanies, all believed ideas, despite the fact that Hume explicitly argues against that thesis (App 3–9/SBN 624–27). Upon closer inspection, however, Sandis denies the radical heterodoxy (24), and his actual claim is more anodyne. Despite his continued reference to belief as a sentiment or feeling, which terms Hume uses to denote distinct impressions (e.g. T 2.1.11.7/SBN 318–19 and T 1.1.1.1/SBN 1–2.), Sandis's actual claim appears to be that we should understand Hume's use of 'belief' to refer to the liveliness of these enlivened ideas, rather than the ideas themselves. What Sandis takes that nominalization to earn him is that beliefs, including moral beliefs, can produce action alone because they "are all sentiments" (99), and Hume is free to hold that we can be motivated directly by at least some of our beliefs, without the need for an additional conative perception. (In this sense, Sandis takes Hume to be non-Humean about motivation.) That is, Sandis holds that the liveliness of some of our ideas can itself be the cause (in the proper Humean sense) of some of our actions. That thesis is significant for Sandis insofar as discovering the cause of our actions brings to bear the question of the disappearing agent (78): if our actions have causes outside of our control, even if these causes are literally parts of us, then in what sense are we responsible for those actions? Sandis's answer on Hume's behalf is that while some actions are bodily movements caused by particular volitional perceptions (acts of will), we are only responsible for those actions that are also caused by manifestations of the long-term dispositions that constitute a person's character. In support of this answer, Sandis also advocates for a revisionist understanding of Hume's account of the self as a bundle of perceptions (chapter 4), an interpretation of Hume's notion of character as long-term behavioral dispositions (chapter 5), a rejection on Hume's behalf of what Sandis calls the Conflating View of Motivating Reasons—the thesis that the reasons for...

Easy Knowledge, Circularity, and the Puzzle of Reliability Knowledge

AbstractAccording to externalist reliabilism and dogmatic foundationalism, it's possible to gain knowledge through a perceptual experience without being in a position to know that the experience is reliable. As a result, both of these views face the problem of making knowledge of perceptual reliability too easy, for they permit deducing perceptual reliability from particular perceptual experience without already knowing that these experiences are trustworthy. Ernest Sosa advocates a two-stage solution to the problem. At the first stage, a rich body of perceptual animal knowledge is acquired. At the second stage, perceptual knowledge becomes reflective after deducing perceptual reliability from the initial body of perceptual animal knowledge. I defend the alternative approach of rejecting both externalist reliabilism and dogmatic foundationalism. According to the alternative view, perceptual knowledge and knowledge of perceptual reliability require each other. Such a cognitive structure seems viciously circular. I propose that the appearance of vicious circularity dissipates when the relationship in question is viewed, not as one of temporal priority, but instead as synchronic mutual dependence. At a given time, one cannot have perceptual knowledge without knowledge of perceptual reliability, and vice versa. Such mutual dependence, I argue, is benign.

Temporal priority of gaze during natural scene viewing

Temporal priority of gaze during natural scene viewing

Cortical Mechanisms of Prioritizing Selection for Rejection in Visual Search.

In visual search, the more one knows about a target, the faster one can find it. Surprisingly, target identification is also faster with knowledge about distractor-features. The latter is paradoxical, as it implies that to avoid the selection of an item, the item must somehow be selected to some degree. This conundrum has been termed the "ignoring paradox", and, to date, little is known about how the brain resolves it. Here, in data from four experiments using neuromagnetic brain recordings in male and female humans, we provide evidence that this paradox is resolved by giving distracting information priority in cortical processing. This attentional priority to distractors manifests as an enhanced early neuromagnetic index, which occurs before target-related processing, and regardless of distractor predictability. It is most pronounced on trials for which a response rapidly occurred, and is followed by a suppression of the distracting information. These observations together suggest that in visual search items cannot be ignored without first being selected.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT How can we ignore distracting stimuli in our environment? To do this successfully, a logical hypothesis is that as few neural resources as possible should be devoted to distractor processing. Yet, to avoid devoting resources to a distractor, the brain must somehow mark what to avoid; this is a philosophical problem, which has been termed the "ignoring paradox" or "white bear phenomenon". Here, we use MEG recordings to determine how the human brain resolves this paradox. Our data show that distractors are not only processed, they are given temporal priority, with the brain building a robust representation of the to-be-ignored items. Thus, successful suppression of distractors can only be achieved if distractors are first strongly neurally represented.

Indexing Priority of Position: Eben as Response Particle in German

ABSTRACTResponse particles manage intersubjectivity. This conversation analytic study describes German eben (“exactly”). With eben, speaker A locally agrees with the immediately prior turn of B (the “confirmable”) and establishes a second indexical link: A relates B’s confirmable to a position A herself had already displayed (the “anchor”). Through claiming temporal priority, eben speakers treat a just-formulated position as self-evident and mark independence. Further evidence for the three-part structure “anchor-confirmable-eben” that eben sets in motion retrospectively comes from instances where eben speakers supply a missing/opaque anchor via a postpositioned display of independent access. Data are in German with English translation.

21.3 NEUROIMAGING MARKERS OF RISK FOR AND PROGRESSION TO FULL PSYCHOSIS IN THE NAPLS PROJECT

BackgroundDr. Larry Seidman made numerous impactful contributions to our understanding of the roles of disrupted neurocognition and brain function in individuals with or at risk for schizophrenia. Based in part on Larry’s seminal work, many in the field have come to view schizophrenia as fundamentally a disorder of dysconnection within and between certain functional networks in the brain. However, what levels or patterns of dysconnection may be sufficient for overt psychosis remains unclear. Because schizophrenia is complexly determined, clinically heterogeneous, and (frequently) chronic and debilitating, neuroimaging studies comparing those with and without this condition cannot by themselves differentiate which neural changes contribute causally, which are epiphenomena, and which are secondary to factors associated with chronicity of illness or antipsychotic drug treatment. A crucial aim is thus isolation of the changes immediately preceding the onset of psychosis that, by virtue of their temporal priority, may represent primary mechanisms in the cascades of events leading to the emergence of psychosis.MethodsIdentifying such changes requires a paradigm for ascertaining at-risk individuals prior to psychosis onset and following them over time. Larry Seidman’s early work found that both patients and their first-degree relatives fail to disengage the default mode network and fail to engage task-positive networks under cognitive challenge. In the early 2000’s, in an effort to isolate changes in brain structure and function more proximal to the onset of psychosis, Larry joined with seven other investigators to launch the North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study (NAPLS). This talk will focus specifically on neuroimaging markers and on results examining baseline and longitudinal changes in brain structure and function among clinical high-risk (CHR) and control subjects, who were scanned at baseline and at 12-months or the point of conversion if it occurred earlier.ResultsConverters to psychosis showed a significantly steeper rate of gray matter thinning in right superior and medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) and greater ventricular expansion than non-converters and controls. These effects were significant controlling for multiple testing and independent of exposure to antipsychotic drugs. Higher levels of proinflammatory cytokines at baseline were predictive of steeper rates of gray matter reduction in superior and medial PFC, consistent with the notion that progressive gray matter change in this context is likely to reflect dendritic retraction and synaptic pruning driven by microglial activation. This interpretation is further supported by recent evidence of genetic susceptibility mechanisms involving complement signaling in schizophrenia, variations that appear to result in over-pruning of cortical synapses in animal models. In smaller subsamples using both task-based and resting-state fMRI, CHR subjects who converted to psychosis showed a progressive decrease in global efficiency and increase in network diversity from baseline to follow-up at the point of conversion. The identified network alterations were highly correlated with each other and with progressive gray matter changes in the prefrontal cortex in converters.DiscussionThese results are suggestive of a progressive loss of gray matter potentially triggered by altered immune signaling leading to over-pruning of synapses and provide preliminary evidence for longitudinal reconfiguration of resting-state and task-positive brain networks during psychosis development. The latter results appear to converge with Dr Seidman’s pioneering work on default mode and task-positive network function in individuals at genetic risk for schizophrenia.

Cues of control modulate the ascription of object ownership.

Knowing whether an object is owned and by whom is essential to avoid costly conflicts. We hypothesize that everyday interactions around objects are influenced by a minimal sense of object ownership grounded on respect of possession. In particular, we hypothesize that tracking object ownership can be influenced by any cue that predicts the establishment of individual physical control over objects. To test this hypothesis we used an indirect method to determine whether visual cues of physical control like spatial proximity to an object, temporal priority in seeing it, and touching it influence this minimal sense of object ownership. In Experiment 1 participants were shown a neutral object located on a table, in the reaching space of one of two characters. In Experiment 2 one character was the first to find the object then another character appeared and saw the object. In Experiments 3 and 4, spatial proximity, temporal priority, and touch are pitted against each other to assess their relative weight. After having seen the scenes, participants were required to judge the sensibility of sentences in which ownership of the object was ascribed to one of the two characters. Responses were faster when the objects were located in the reaching space of the character to whom ownership was ascribed in the sentence and when ownership was ascribed to the character who was the first to find the object. When contrasting the relevant cues, results indicate that touch is stronger than temporal priority in modulating the ascription of object ownership. However, all these effects were also influenced by contextual social cues like the gender of both characters and participants, the presence of a third-party observer, and the co-presence of characters. Consistently with our hypothesis, results indicate that many different cues of physical control influence the ascription of ownership in daily social contexts.

Connectivity as a multiple: In, with and as "nature".

Connectivity is a central concept in contemporary geographies of nature, but the concept is often understood and utilised in plural ways. This is problematic because of the separation, rather than the confusion, of these different approaches. While the various understandings of connectivity are rarely considered as working together, the connections between them have significant implications. This paper thus proposes re‐thinking connectivity as a “multiple”. It develops a taxonomy of existing connectivity concepts from the fields of biogeography and landscape ecology, conservation biology, socio‐economic systems theory, political ecology and more‐than‐human geography. It then considers how these various understandings might be re‐thought not as separate concerns, but (following Annemarie Mol) as “more than one, but less than many”. The implications of using the connectivity multiple as an analytic for understanding conservation practices are demonstrated through considering the creation of wildlife corridors in conservation practice. The multiple does not just serve to highlight the practical and theoretical linkages between ecological theories, social inequities and affectual relationships in more‐than‐human worlds. It is also suggestive of a normative approach to environmental management that does not give temporal priority to biological theories, but considers these as always already situated in these social, often unequal, always more‐than‐human ecologies.

Idaho beginnings: A review of the evidence

Evidence sought here for a pre-Clovis presence in the Snake River basin of Idaho and northeastern Oregon in the millennium ending at 11,600 yr BP includes radiocarbon and tephrochronological dates, extinct Pleistocene faunal associations, depositional context and living floor and feature integrity, and typologically or technologically legible lithic industries. Results of a review of eleven sites found ambiguous evidence for pre-Clovis hearths in two caves, but no convincing support for the temporal priority of the Western Stemmed over the Clovis tradition. However, intact sites of the Western Stemmed tradition, dating to 10,200–9800 yr BP, survive at 4 + m below surface in deep Quaternary alluvium in canyon floors in west-central Idaho below 610 m elevation. Deeper and earlier deposits may be found in the same settings.

From Tula Chico to Chichén Itzá: Implications of the Epiclassic Sculpture of Tula for the Nature and Timing of Tula-Chichén Contact

AbstractIn the last four decades, a number of archaeologists and art historians have posited that “Toltec” Chichén Itzá (Yucatán, Mexico) flourished during the ninth and tenth centuries A.D. They argued that because the “Toltec” style in Yucatán predated the Tollan phase at Tula (Hidalgo, Mexico), most of the style features shared between the cities originated with the Maya. Here, I examine the relevance of the Epiclassic relief sculpture of Tula Chico for the timing and nature of contact between Tula and Chichén Itzá. The presence of reliefs of reclining figures in clear “Toltec” style at Tula Chico in contexts predating their occurrence at Chichén Itzá suggests that claims for a predominantly Maya origin for that style stand in need of revision. Such a rethinking is supported by other fragmentary images from Tula Chico (eagles and Venus symbols), as well as by new studies of ceramic materials and chronology at Chichén Itzá. It is clear that Tula was an active participant in whatever interactions led to similar visual arts at Chichén Itzá, and at least some of the shared iconography has temporal priority at Tula.

Persistent asymmetrical priority effects in a California grassland restoration experiment.

The order of species arrival can dramatically alter the trajectory of community development. While there is experimental evidence that priority effects can be important drivers of community structure early on, the persistence and duration of these effects is unclear. Here we report on a community assembly experiment in which a mix of four native grasses and a mix of four native forbs were planted on their own, together, or with one-year priority over the other guild. We found positive effects of priority for both grasses and forbs in the initial years of the experiment. However, 6-8yr after planting, the effectiveness of priority treatments were mixed. Some species became rare, persisting only in treatments in which they had been given priority; others continued to maintain high cover and exhibit a strong positive signal of priority effects; still others remained common but no longer showed a signature of the initial priority effects; and finally, some species became locally extinct across all experimental plots. Grass priority over forbs was strong and persistent, but not forb priority over grasses. Our results demonstrate that the long-term benefits of temporal priority can persist for at least 8yr for some, but not all species, and these continued effects result in distinct community composition. Manipulating the trajectory of community assembly through priority in seeding has potential as a useful tool for restoration.

Temporal priority effects on competition are not consistent among intermountain grassland species

Previous work indicates that priority effects exist, but mechanisms are not well understood. So we explored shifts in competitive outcomes and intensities as a potential general mechanism. In a standard greenhouse experiment the temporal priority effects of the target species Pseudoroegneria spicata and its competitive responses to five receptor species, i.e., Bromus ciliatus, Bromus marginatus, Coreopsis tinctoria, Senecio atratus, and Solidago canadensis were evaluated. P. spicata adults with a high root: shoot ratio had a significant inhibitory priority effect on B. ciliatus, B. marginatus, and C. tinctoria. Compared with the target species, under later and simultaneous sowing, B. ciliatus, B. marginatus, C. tinctoria, and S. atratus exhibited an increasing trend in terms of competition. However, S. canadensis did not display priority effects. In addition, the gram per gram competitive effect of P. spicata depended on the receptor species in the following order: B. marginatus > B. ciliatus > C. tinctoria > S. atratus. There were positive relationships between the relative interaction indices and the root: shoot ratios in B. ciliatus, B. marginatus, and C. tinctoria, thereby suggesting that the early germination or emergence of P. spicata may reduce the root: shoot ratios of these receptors. The results of this study indicate that priority effects occurred in early colonizers with high root: shoot ratios and greater competitive capacities.

Time reordered: Causal perception guides the interpretation of temporal order

We present a novel temporal illusion in which the perceived order of events is dictated by their perceived causal relationship. Participants view a simple Michotte-style launching sequence featuring 3 objects, in which one object starts moving before its presumed cause. Not only did participants re-order the events in a causally consistent way, thus violating the objective temporal order, but they also failed to recognise the clip they had seen, preferring a clip in which temporal and causal order matched. We show that the effect is not due to lack of attention to the presented events and we discuss the problem of determining whether causality affects temporal order at an early perceptual stage or whether it distorts an accurately perceived order during retrieval. Alternatively, we propose a mechanism by which temporal order is neither misperceived nor misremembered but inferred “on-demand” given phenomenal causality and the temporal priority principle, the assumption that causes precede their effects. Finally, we discuss how, contrary to theories of causal perception, impressions of causality can be generated from dynamic sequences with strong spatiotemporal deviations.

Dispositions: An Integrational Analysis

AbstractWhereas the Humean accounts of causality in terms of contiguity, temporal priority, constant conjunction, and contingency face difficulties of one sort, the dispositional explanations of causality in terms of reciprocity, simultaneity, ubiquity, and holism seem to meet difficulties of another sort. But the difficulties which dispositionalism faces may be dissipated if one can appeal consistently to the logic of naturalism, rather than to the grammar of an implicit dualism, for example, as it is illustrated when G. Molnar tried to advance the analogy between the mental intentionality and the physical intentionality.The notion of integration is taken to allow a conceptual space for naturalism of one kind. It may be expressed in the thesis that there is integrationality in any entity like dispositions, such that the integrationality is a power to realize the embedded objective of it in the context where it interacts with all others. The thesis would help to see how dispositions can be intentional, how the notion of information may be read integrationally from any object, and how the notion of fitting plays a role in the metaphysics of integrationality.

Short-term priority over exotic annuals increases the initial density and longer-term cover of native perennial grasses.

Temporal priority can affect individual performance and reproduction, as well as community assembly, but whether these effects persist over time remains unclear, and their demographic mechanisms have been little explored. The continued dominance of exotic annual grasses in California has been commonly attributed to their demonstrated early germination and rapid early growth relative to native perennial grasses. This advantage may play a crucial role in the structure of California exotic annual grasslands, as well as in the practice of native grassland restoration. We tested whether a two-week planting advantage under field conditions increased individual survival, growth, and reproduction for four native perennial grass species and whether these effects persisted over three years. We show that short-term priority significantly increased the establishment success of' native perennial grasses. Increased density of native grass seedlings presaged later large increases in cover that were not evident in the first year after planting. Although priority effects at the individual level may diminish over time, short differences in emergence timing can have long-lasting effects on community structure. Earlier germination and faster initial growth of exotic annual species may help explain their unprecedented invasion and continued dominance of California grasslands. Finally, these results highlight the importance of priority effects for effective exotic annual control during native grassland restoration in California: initial control can increase the establishment of native perennial seedlings, which then results in long-term control by mature native individuals.

The real-time comprehension of WH-dependencies in a WH-agreement language

In the verb-initial language Chamorro, an Austronesian language of the Mariana Islands, wh -dependencies exhibit a special verbal inflection known as wh-agreement : verbs along the path of the wh -dependency are inflected for the grammatical relation of the gap and the intermediate landing sites of the filler. Two on-line comprehension experiments conducted in the Northern Mariana Islands reveal that the morphological paradigm of wh -agreement affects the timing of dependency formation and interpretation in this language. Overt wh -agreement facilitates the formation of a wh -dependency. When overt wh -agreement could occur but does not, however, its absence delays and attenuates wh -dependency formation. In short, morphological information exerts a powerful influence on the unfolding parse, one that has temporal priority over syntactic information, such as word order, and semantic information, such as argument structure.

Anxious and non-anxious major depressive disorder in the World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys.

To examine cross-national patterns and correlates of lifetime and 12-month comorbid DSM-IV anxiety disorders among people with lifetime and 12-month DSM-IV major depressive disorder (MDD). Nationally or regionally representative epidemiological interviews were administered to 74045 adults in 27 surveys across 24 countries in the WHO World Mental Health (WMH) Surveys. DSM-IV MDD, a wide range of comorbid DSM-IV anxiety disorders, and a number of correlates were assessed with the WHO Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). 45.7% of respondents with lifetime MDD (32.0-46.5% inter-quartile range (IQR) across surveys) had one of more lifetime anxiety disorders. A slightly higher proportion of respondents with 12-month MDD had lifetime anxiety disorders (51.7%, 37.8-54.0% IQR) and only slightly lower proportions of respondents with 12-month MDD had 12-month anxiety disorders (41.6%, 29.9-47.2% IQR). Two-thirds (68%) of respondents with lifetime comorbid anxiety disorders and MDD reported an earlier age-of-onset (AOO) of their first anxiety disorder than their MDD, while 13.5% reported an earlier AOO of MDD and the remaining 18.5% reported the same AOO of both disorders. Women and previously married people had consistently elevated rates of lifetime and 12-month MDD as well as comorbid anxiety disorders. Consistently higher proportions of respondents with 12-month anxious than non-anxious MDD reported severe role impairment (64.4 v. 46.0%; χ 2 1=187.0, p<0.001) and suicide ideation (19.5 v. 8.9%; χ 2 1=71.6, p<0.001). Significantly more respondents with 12-month anxious than non-anxious MDD received treatment for their depression in the 12 months before interview, but this difference was more pronounced in high-income countries (68.8 v. 45.4%; χ 2 1=108.8, p<0.001) than low/middle-income countries (30.3 v. 20.6%; χ 2 1=11.7, p<0.001). Patterns and correlates of comorbid DSM-IV anxiety disorders among people with DSM-IV MDD are similar across WMH countries. The narrow IQR of the proportion of respondents with temporally prior AOO of anxiety disorders than comorbid MDD (69.6-74.7%) is especially noteworthy. However, the fact that these proportions are not higher among respondents with 12-month than lifetime comorbidity means that temporal priority between lifetime anxiety disorders and MDD is not related to MDD persistence among people with anxious MDD. This, in turn, raises complex questions about the relative importance of temporally primary anxiety disorders as risk markers v. causal risk factors for subsequent MDD onset and persistence, including the possibility that anxiety disorders might primarily be risk markers for MDD onset and causal risk factors for MDD persistence.

Initial success of native grasses is contingent on multiple interactions among exotic grass competition, temporal priority, rainfall and site effects.

Ecological communities are increasingly being recognized as the products of contemporary drivers and historical legacies that are both biotic and abiotic. In an attempt to unravel multiple layers of ecological contingency, we manipulated (i) competition with exotic annual grasses, (ii) the timing of this competition (temporal priority in arrival/seeding times) and (iii) watering (simulated rainfall) in a restoration-style planting of native perennial grasses. In addition, we replicated this experiment simultaneously at three sites in north-central California. Native perennial grasses had 73-99 % less cover when planted with exotic annuals than when planted alone, but this reduction was greatly ameliorated by planting the natives 2 weeks prior to the exotics. In a drought year, irrigation significantly reduced benefits of early planting so that these benefits resembled those observed in a non-drought year. There were significant differences across the three sites (site effects and interactions) in (i) overall native cover, (ii) the response of natives to competition, (iii) the strength of the temporal priority effect and (iv) the degree to which supplemental watering reduced priority effects. These results reveal the strong multi-layered contingency that underlies even relatively simple communities.

On the priority of salience-based interpretations: The case of sarcastic irony

AbstractResults from 2 experiments support the view that, regardless of strength of contextual expectation for utterance nonsalient (ironic) interpretation, (a) salience-based interpretations will not be blocked. Instead, they will be facilitated initially. And, (b) if conducive to the interpretation process, they will not be suppressed, albeit incompatible (Giora 2003; Giora and Fein 1999a; Giora and Fein 1999b; Giora et al. 2007). In Experiment 1, expectancy for an ironic utterance was manipulated by introducing an ironic speaker, whose ironic utterances were prefaced by overt ironic cues, making explicit the speaker's ironic intent. In Experiment 2, expectancy strongly biased via repeated exposure to ironic utterances, was further strengthened by informing participants that the experiment was testing sarcasm interpretation. Long processing times were allowed so as to tap later (suppression) processes. Results from reading times and lexical decisions support the temporal priority of salience-based interpretations, while arguing against both, the contextualist views (Gibbs 2002; Katz 2009) and the Gricean suppression hypothesis (Grice 1975).