Answering questions about negative conditionals

Two studies explored readers' mental representations of declarative sentences containing unless and if not. Errors and reading times showed that people represented if not as a positive action and negative condition. Performance with if not was unaffected by the order of condition and action in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of memory and language 1986-12, Vol.25 (6), p.691-709
Main Authors: Wright, P, Hull, A.J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Language
Production and perception of written language
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
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Summary:Two studies explored readers' mental representations of declarative sentences containing unless and if not. Errors and reading times showed that people represented if not as a positive action and negative condition. Performance with if not was unaffected by the order of condition and action in the text but was better if subsequent information referred to the condition rather than to the action. Three rules governing readers' representations are proposed to account for performance with if not. An additional rule is needed for unless, which was sometimes represented as a negative action and positive condition. Choice of representation for unless varied with the writer's order of mentioning action and condition information.
ISSN:0749-596X
1096-0821
DOI:10.1016/0749-596X(86)90044-6