Initial Models in Conditionals: Evidence from Priming

Abstract

We examined the comprehension of different types of conditionals. We measured the reading time of sentences primed by different types of conditionals (Experiments 1 and 2). We found that the participants readnot-p and not-qfaster when it was primed by the conditional formp if qand they were slower to readp and qwhen it was primed by the conditional formp only if q. This effect disappeared in the second experiment, where the order of the elements was reversed (q and pandnot-q and not-p). These results suggest that the conditional formp if qelicits an initial representation “from p to q” with two possibilities, while the conditional formp only if qelicits a reverse representation with only one possibility. The third experiment showed that there were effects of the order only for the conditionalif p then q, which confirms the reverse representation hypothesis. We discuss the implications of these results for different theories of conditional comprehension.