The Comprehension of Counterfactual Conditionals: Evidence From Eye-Tracking in the Visual World Paradigm

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Isabel Orenes¹  Juan A. García-Madruga²  Isabel Gómez-Veiga²  Orlando Espino³  Ruth M. J. Byrne⁴ 

[1] Department of Basic Psychology I, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED);Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology (UNED);Department of Psychology, Universidad de La Laguna;School of Psychology and Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin

关键词: counterfactuals;    conditionals;    comprehension;    visual-world-paradigm;    reasoning;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01172

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Three experiments tracked participants’ eye-movements to examine the time course of comprehension of the dual meaning of counterfactuals, such as “if there had been oranges then there would have been pears.” Participants listened to conditionals while looking at images in the visual world paradigm, including an image of oranges and pears that corresponds to the counterfactual’s conjecture, and one of no oranges and no pears that corresponds to its presumed facts, to establish at what point in time they consider each one. The results revealed striking individual differences: some participants looked at the negative image and the affirmative one, and some only at the affirmative image. The first experiment showed that participants who looked at the negative image increased their fixation on it within half a second. The second experiment showed they do so even without explicit instructions, and the third showed they do so even for printed words.

【 授权许可】

CC BY