Role of Two Types of Syntactic Embedding in Belief Attribution in Adults with or without Asperger Syndrome

The role of syntax in belief attribution (BA) is not completely understood in healthy adults and understudied in adults with autism spectrum disorder. Embedded syntax could be useful either for the development of Theory of Mind (ToM) (Emergence account) or more generally over the lifespan (Reasoning account). Two hypotheses have been explored, one suggesting that embedding itself (Relatives and Complement sentences and Metarepresentation account) is important for ToM and another one considering that the embedding of a false proposition into a true one (Complement sentences and Misrepresentation account) is important. The goals of this study were to evaluate (1) the role of syntax in ToM (Emergence vs. Reasoning account), (2) the type of syntax implied in ToM (Metarepresentation vs. Misrepresentation account), and (3) the verbally mediated strategies which compensate for ToM deficits in adults with Asperger Syndrome (AS). Fifty NeuroTypical (NT) adults and 22 adults with AS were involved in a forced-choice task including ±ToM tasks (BA and a control task, physical causation, PC) under four Interference conditions (silence, syllable repetition, relative sentences repetition, and complement sentences repetition). The non-significant ±ToM × Interference interaction effect in the NT group did not support the Reasoning account and thus suggests that syntax is useful only for ToM development (i.e., Emergence account). Results also indicated that repeating complement clauses put NT participants in a dual task whereas repeating relative clauses did not, suggesting that repeating relatives is easier for NT than repeating complements. This could be an argument in favor of the Misrepresentation account. However, this result should be interpreted with caution because our results did not support the Reasoning account. Moreover, AS participants (but not NT participants) were more disrupted by ±ToM tasks when asked to repeat complement sentences compared to relative clause sentences. This result is in favor of the Misrepresentation account and indirectly suggests verbally mediated strategies for ToM in AS. To summarize, our results are in favor of the Emergence account in NT and of Reasoning and Misrepresentation accounts in adults with AS. Overall, this suggests that adults with AS use complement syntax to compensate for ToM deficits.

Scalar Implicatures: The Psychological Reality of Scales

Scalar implicatures, the phenomena where a sentence like “The pianist played some Mozart sonatas” is interpreted, as “The pianist did not play all Mozart sonatas” have been given two different analyses. Neo-Griceans (NG) claim that this interpretation is based on lexical scales (e.g., <some, all>), where the stronger term (e.g., all) implies the weaker term (e.g., some), but the weaker term (e.g., some) implicates the negation of the stronger term (i.e., some = not all). Post-Griceans (PG) deny that this is the case and offer a context-based inferential account for scalar implicatures. While scalar implicatures have been extensively investigated, with results apparently in favor of PG accounts, the psychological reality of lexical scales has not been put to the test. This is what we have done in the present experiment, with a lexical decision task using lexical scales in a masked priming paradigm. While PG accounts do not attribute any role for lexical scales in the computation of scalar implicatures, NG accounts suggest that lexical scales are the core mechanism behind the computation of scalar implicatures, and predict that weaker terms in a scale should prime stronger terms more than the reverse because stronger words are necessary to the interpretation of weaker words, while stronger words can be interpreted independently of weaker words. Our results provided evidence in favor of the psychological existence of scales, leading to the first clear experimental support for the NG account.

Context in Generalized Conversational Implicatures: The Case of Some

There is now general agreement about the optionality of scalar implicatures: the pragmatic interpretation will be accessed depending on the context relative to which the utterance is interpreted. The question, then, is what makes a context upper- (vs. lower-) bounding. Neo-Gricean accounts should predict that contexts including factual information will enhance the rate of pragmatic interpretations. Post-Gricean accounts should predict that contexts including psychological attributions will enhance the rate of pragmatic interpretations. We tested two factors using the quantifier scale <all, some>: (1) the existence of factual information that facilitates the computation of pragmatic interpretations in the context (here, the cardinality of the domain of quantification) and (2) the fact that the context makes the difference between the semantic and the pragmatic interpretations of the target sentence relevant, involving psychological attributions to the speaker (here a question using all). We did three experiments, all of which suggest that while cardinality information may be necessary to the computation of the pragmatic interpretation, it plays a minor role in triggering it; highlighting the contrast between the pragmatic and the semantic interpretations, while it is not necessary to the computation of the pragmatic interpretation, strongly mandates a pragmatic interpretation. These results favor Sperber and Wilson's (1995) post-Gricean account over Chierchia's (2013) neo-Gricean account. Overall, this suggests that highlighting the relevance of the pragmatic vs. semantic interpretations of the target sentence makes a context upper-bounding. Additionally, the results give a small advantage to the post-Gricean account.

Why language really is not a communication system: a cognitive view of language evolution

While most evolutionary scenarios for language see it as a communication system with consequences on the language-ready brain, there are major difficulties for such a view. First, language has a core combination of features—semanticity, discrete infinity, and decoupling—that makes it unique among communication systems and that raise deep problems for the view that it evolved for communication. Second, extant models of communication systems—the code model of communication (Millikan, 2005) and the ostensive model of communication (Scott-Phillips, 2015) cannot account for language evolution. I propose an alternative view, according to which language first evolved as a cognitive tool, following Fodor’s (1975, 2008) Language of Thought Hypothesis, and was then exapted (externalized) for communication. On this view, a language-ready brain is a brain profoundly reorganized in terms of connectivity, allowing the human conceptual system to emerge, triggering the emergence of syntax. Language as used in communication inherited its core combination of features from the Language of Thought.