Shen, Yihang; (2025) Priming Pragmatic Ambiguities: Context Adaptation and Inverse Preference Effects in Plural Interpretations and Scalar Implicatures. Masters thesis (M.Phil), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis investigates the cognitive mechanisms underlying the interpretation of pragmatic ambiguities, focusing on plural ambiguities and scalar implicatures. While previous studies have suggested that priming effects in these domains support structural explanations—such as the existence of a silent distributivity operator in plural interpretations and the Salience Hypothesis in scalar implicature generation— this research explores whether adaptive processes like context adaptation and inverse preference effects offer a better account. In the first study, we replicated Maldonado, Chemla, and Spector's (2017) experiment on plural ambiguities using a two-block design to control for spillover effects and establish a neutral baseline. Our findings revealed that the disfavored cumulative reading exerted a stronger priming effect, decreasing the likelihood of the preferred distributive reading. This inverse preference effect challenges the notion that priming supports the existence of a silent distributivity operator, suggesting instead that participants adapt their interpretations based on recent linguistic input and probabilistic expectations. The second study reanalyzed reaction time data from Marty et al.'s (2022) experiment on scalar implicature priming. The analysis showed that reaction times varied depending on the alignment of primes with participants' prior preferences. Unexpected or less preferred primes often led to increased reaction times or stronger influences on participants' processing. These results support the Context Adaptation Hypothesis over the Salience Hypothesis, indicating that participants adjust their expectations and interpretations in response to recent experiences. Overall, the findings across both studies suggest that adaptive mechanisms, rather than structural priming or increased salience, better explain priming effects in pragmatic ambiguities. Participants actively modify their interpretative strategies based on context and prior preferences, highlighting the dynamic interplay between linguistic input and cognitive processing. This research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of language comprehension and has implications for theories of pragmatics, psycholinguistics, and language education.

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