Negation in Context: A Functional Approach to Suppression

Abstract Three experiments show that, contrary to the current view, comprehenders do not unconditionally deactivate information marked by negation. Instead, they discard negated information when it is functionally motivated. In Experiment 1, comprehenders discarded negated concepts when cued by a topic shift to dampen recently processed information. However, in the presence of a global cue suggesting topic continuity, they retained it, despite a local negation marker that might prompt it. Specifically, when negative statements (The train to Boston was no rocket ; Hasson & Glucksberg, 2006) were furnished with relevant (compared to irrelevant) subsequent contexts (The trip to the city was fastthough), incompatible meanings ('fast'), related to the affirmative sense of the negative metaphor (rocket), were not suppressed. Instead they were retained and primed related targets (fast) appearing in the late context. Experiment 2 showed that preceding contexts had similar effects, inducing retention of probes related to the affirmative meaning of a negated target. Such effects, however, waned after a lengthy delay (Experiment 3).

[1]  M. Pickering,et al.  Obtaining a Figurative Interpretation of a Word: Support for Underspecification , 2001 .

[2]  J. Woolley,et al.  Paradigms and processes in reading comprehension. , 1982, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[3]  Jerome L. Myers,et al.  Elaborative inferences during reading: do they occur on-line? , 1988, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[4]  Rolf A. Zwaan,et al.  Experiential simulations of negated text information , 2007, Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[5]  B. Keysar.  Discourse context effects: Metaphorical and literal interpretations , 1994 .

[6]  B. Kaup,et al.  Negation and its impact on the accessibility of text information , 2001, Memory & cognition.

[7]  E. Burnstein,et al.  “I am not guilty” vs “I am innocent”: Successful negation may depend on the schema used for its encoding☆ , 2004 .

[8]  Murray Singer,et al.  The role of case‐filling inferences in the coherence of brief passages∗ , 1980 .

[9]  Uri Hasson,et al.  Does understanding negation entail affirmation?: An examination of negated metaphors , 2006 .

[10]  Mira Ariel.  Accessing Noun-Phrase Antecedents , 1990 .

[11]  M. Just,et al.  Changes in activation levels with negation. , 1989, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[12]  Morton Ann Gernsbacher,et al.  Language Comprehension As Structure Building , 1990 .

[13]  R. Giora.  On Our Mind: Salience, Context, and Figurative Language , 2003 .

[14]  K. Lewin,et al.  Untersuchungen zur Handlungs- und Affektpsychologie , 1927 .

[15]  G. R. Potts,et al.  Assessing the occurrence of elaborative inferences: Lexical decision versus naming , 1988 .

[16]  R. Carston.  Thoughts and Utterances , 2002 .

[17]  K Rayner,et al.  Elaborative inferences during reading: do they occur on-line? , 1988, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[18]  Barbara Kaup,et al.  Context Effects when Reading Negative and Affirmative Sentences , 2006 .

[19]  S A Duffy,et al.  Role of expectations in sentence integration. , 1986, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[20]  Rolf A. Zwaan,et al.  Processing negated sentences with contradictory predicates: Is a door that is not open mentally closed? , 2006 .

[21]  Rolf A. Zwaan,et al.  Effects of negation and situational presence on the accessibility of text information. , 2003, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[22]  S. Fillenbaum,et al.  Memory for Gist: Some Relevant Variables , 1966, Language and speech.

[23]  R. Giora,et al.  On understanding familiar and less-familiar figurative language☆ , 1999 .

[24]  Murray Singer,et al.  Processes of inference during sentence encoding , 1979 .

[25]  R. Giora.  Anything negatives can do affirmatives can do just as well, except for some metaphors , 2006 .

[26]  B. Zeigarnik.  On finished and unfinished tasks. , 1938 .

[27]  K. Lewin,et al.  Untersuchungen zur Handlungs- und Affektpsychologie , 1927 .

[28]  Roger Ratcliff,et al.  Priming in item recognition: The organization of propositions in memory for text , 1980 .

[29]  T. Allen.  Thank you. , 2003, CJEM.

[30]  Mina Johnson-Glenberg,et al.  Not Propositions , 1999, Cognitive Systems Research.

[31]  R. Giora.  A TEXT-BASED ANALYSIS OF NON-NARRATIVE TEXTS , 1985 .

[32]  Alan Garnham.  Minimalism versus constructionism: A false dichotomy in theories of inference during reading , 1992 .

[33]  Carita Paradis,et al.  Antonymy and negation—The boundedness hypothesis , 2006 .

[34]  M. Singer,et al.  Inferring consequences in story comprehension , 1983 .