ArticlePDF Available

Juliet: If they do see thee, they will murder thee. A satisficing algorithm for pragmatic conditionals

DOI:10.1007/s11299-006-0009-z
Authors:
Alejandro López-Rousseau at Freelance
Alejandro López-Rousseau
  • Freelance
Timothy Ketelaar at New Mexico State University
Timothy Ketelaar
Download full-text PDF
Read full-text
Download citation

Abstract and Figures

In a recent Mind & Society article, Evans (2005) argues for the social and communicative function of conditional statements. In a related article, we argue for satisficing algorithms for mapping conditional statements onto social domains (Eur J Cogn Psychol 16:807–823,2004). The purpose of the present commentary is to integrate these two arguments by proposing a revised pragmatic cues algorithm for pragmatic conditionals.
Figures - uploaded by Timothy Ketelaar
Author content
All figure content in this area was uploaded by Timothy Ketelaar
Content may be subject to copyright.
Content uploaded by Timothy Ketelaar
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Timothy Ketelaar on Feb 25, 2015
Content may be subject to copyright.
Abstract In a recent Mind & Society article, Evans (2005) argues for the
social and communicative function of conditional statements. In a related
article, we argue for satisficing algorithms for mapping conditional statements
onto social domains (Eur J Cogn Psychol 16:807–823,2004). The purpose of
the present commentary is to integrate these two arguments by proposing a
revised pragmatic cues algorithm for pragmatic conditionals.
Keywords Conditionals Æ Pragmatics Æ Satisficing algorithms
1 Introduction
According to Evans (2005), speakers use conditional statements of the form
‘‘if P, then Q’’ to influence the actions and beliefs of listeners. And they do so
in a context, by having them imagine the actual possibility of P and the
practical consequence of Q, before making a decision on how to act or what to
believe. Take his example of an editor telling an author: ‘‘if you submit your
paper to our journal, we will publish it’’. For Evans, this is an instance of a
Juliet: If they do see thee, they will murder thee—Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet II ii 76
(Luhrmann 2002)
A. Lo
´
pez-Rousseau (&)
Amor de Dios 4, 28014 Madrid, Spain
e-mail: lopezrousseau@yahoo.com
T. Ketelaar
Department of Psychology, New Mexico State University,
Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001, USA
e-mail: ketelaar@nmsu.edu
123
Mind & Society
DOI 10.1007/s11299-006-0009-z
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Juliet: If they do see thee, they will murder thee.
A satisficing algorithm for pragmatic conditionals
Alejandro Lo´ pez-Rousseau Æ Timothy Ketelaar
Received: 11 October 2005 / Accepted: 29 November 2005
Ó Fondazione Rosselli 2006
promise, because it strongly encourages the act of submission by the listener,
as the reward of publication is controlled by the speaker. More broadly, it is a
statement of the speaker meant to induce an action of the listener.
Figure 1 shows our taxonomic representation of conditional statements
analysed by Evans (2005), including their defining terms and features
according to him. It is not an exhaustive taxonomy, as it does not include
conditionals not discussed by Evans, such as permissions and obligations,
requests and orders, and so on.
We basically agree with Evans’ (2005) conditionals, except for his distinc-
tion of inducement and advice in terms of influence strength. According to
him, an inducement is stronger than an advice, because in an inducement the
speaker controls the consequent event, whereas in an advice the speaker does
not. Take his above example of a promise and compare it to his other example
of a colleague telling an author: ‘‘If you submit your paper to their journal,
they will publish it’’. For him, this is an instance of a tip, because it weakly
encourages the act of submission by the listener, as the reward of publication
is not controlled by the speaker, but by others.
We do believe that the speaker’s control of the consequences is the dis-
criminating feature between an inducement and an advice, but we do not be-
lieve that this feature makes an inducement necessarily stronger than an advice.
Take the example of a modern Juliet telling her Romeo: ‘‘if my brothers see
you, they will kill you’’. According to Evans (2005) and ourselves, this is a
warning, because it seeks to deter the act by Romeo, and the punishment is not
controlled by Juliet, but by her brothers. However, this warning is stronger, not
weaker than the threat of Juliet telling Romeo: ‘‘if my brothers see you, I will
kill you’’. Although now the punishment is controlled by Juliet, not her
brothers. Or take a pharmacist’s advice: ‘‘if you take this pill, it will calm you’’.
Fig. 1 The taxonomic representation of social and communicative conditionals
Mind & Society
123
And compare it to a pharmacist’s promise: ‘‘if you take this pill, I will calm
you’’. Evidently, an inducement is not necessarily stronger than an advice. In
fact, it is context that determines the strength of a conditional. For example, a
medical warning is stronger when made by an expert than a novice doctor.
2 A satisficing algorithm for pragmatic conditionals
However, the point of this commentary is another, namely, to integrate Evans’
(2005) detailed analysis of pragmatic conditionals in his recent article with a
satisficing algorithm for pragmatic conditionals we advanced in a related
article (Lo
´
pez-Rousseau and Ketelaar 2004). Particularly, because in his
suppositional approach, Evans does not address the possibility of conditional
reasoning being driven by satisficing processes.
Figure 2 shows the pragmatic cues algorithm for classifying conditional
promises, threats, advices, warnings, permissions and obligations (Lo
´
pez-
Rousseau and Ketelaar 2004). This algorithm was introduced as a partial
answer to the question: When confronted with a conditional, given that all
conditionals are formally equivalent, how do people know whether they are
facing a promise, a threat or something else? Certainly, because of the content
and context of the conditional as conveyed by linguistic and non-linguistic
cues. But it is not always clear. Take the following example (Newell 2004)
Kirsten: If you fail me, there will be consequences.
Julia: Are you threatening me?
Fig. 2 The pragmatic cues algorithm. Source: Lo
´
pez-Rousseau and Ketelaar (2004) ‘‘If ...’’:
satisficing algorithms for mapping conditional statements onto social domains (Eur J Cogn
Psychol 16:812)
Mind & Society
123
It is not clear whether Kirsten’s conditional is a threat to Julia, and this is why
Julia asks Kirsten whether she is threatening her. Apparently, people’s cog-
nitive algorithm for classifying conditionals is not optimal but satisficing,
namely, a simple serial procedure sufficing for satisfactory classifications in
most cases, but not in all cases. So, exactly how is this cognitive algorithm?
The pragmatic cues algorithm is meant to simulate people’s cognitive
algorithm for classifying conditionals. The algorithm is restricted to six
pragmatic conditionals and three linguistic cues. In fact, the algorithm is
meant to be the most simple by including the minimum possible of three cues
to classify those six conditionals. Also, the algorithm is meant to be serial by
adopting the sequential form of a decision tree, which simplifies the classifi-
cation by discarding three conditionals after the first cue, and two more
conditionals after the second cue. And the algorithm is meant to be satisficing
by producing correct classifications in most but not all cases. In this regard, the
pragmatic cues algorithm would misclassify any excluded conditional (e.g.,
requests) or any included conditional based on excluded cues (e.g., gestures).
Evidently, people’s cognitive algorithm would include all conditionals and all
cues (for details, see Lo
´
pez-Rousseau and Ketelaar 2004).
Given that a number of complex, parallel or optimizing algorithms can be
used for classifying conditionals, an empirical test was run on how well the
pragmatic cues algorithm approximates the performance of people’s cognitive
algorithm. Briefly, conditional promises, threats, advices, warnings, permis-
sions and obligations were collected from people, and given to other people
and the algorithm for classification. Their corresponding performances were
then compared. Results show that people classified most conditionals cor-
rectly, and that the pragmatic cues algorithm did almost as well as people.
Both the algorithm’s and people’s classifications were far better than chance,
and their misclassifications were randomly distributed. These findings indicate
that the pragmatic cues algorithm approximates well the performance of
people’s cognitive algorithm for classifying conditionals, and suggest that this
satisficing algorithm might be an integral part of that cognitive algorithm (see
Lo
´
pez-Rousseau and Ketelaar 2004).
Now back to Evans (2005). Figure 3 shows that by simply discarding per-
missions and obligations from the pragmatic cues algorithm, its first two cues
readily account for all four of Evans’ pragmatic conditionals, namely, advices
(tips), promises, threats and warnings. Take again the example of Juliet telling
Romeo: ‘‘if my brothers see you, they will kill you’’. The pragmatic cues
algorithm would process this conditional by applying its first cue, and asking
whether the conditional’s consequent Q is meant as a benefit for the listener
(Romeo). Because being killed is not a benefit for the listener (Romeo), the
algorithm would follow its ‘no’ branch to the second cue, and ask whether the
conditional’s consequent Q involves an act of the speaker (Juliet). Because
the killing is not done by the speaker (Juliet), the algorithm would then follow
its ‘no’ branch to the warning domain, and stop there. Thus, according to the
algorithm, Juliet’s conditional is a warning to Romeo.
Mind & Society
123
Now take again the example of Kirsten telling Julia: ‘if you fail me, there
will be consequences’. According to the pragmatic cues algorithm, it is not
clear whether Kirsten’s conditional is a threat to Julia. Actually, it is unclear to
herself as well, and this is why Julia asks Kirsten whether she is threatening
her. To the algorithm, it is not clear firstly whether the stated consequences
are meant as a benefit for the listener (Julia) or not, and secondly whether
these consequences involve an act of the speaker (Kirsten) or not. The con-
ditional’s context suggests that the consequences would not mean a benefit for
the listener (Julia) and could involve an act of the speaker (Kirsten). Thus,
Kirsten’s conditional is probably a threat to Julia.
In fact, a new analysis using the same empirical data obtained by us
before (Lo
´
pez-Rousseau and Ketelaar 2004) reveals that this reduced
pragmatic cues algorithm does almost as well as people in classifying con-
ditional advices (tips), promises, threats and warnings. Figure 4 shows the
percentage of correctly classified pragmatic conditionals by the algorithm
and people (people’s average 95%, range 90–100%; algorithm’s average
92%, range 86–96%). Both people’s and the algorithm’s classifications are
far better than chance (25%), and both misclassifications are randomly
distributed. These findings indicate that the pragmatic cues algorithm for
pragmatic conditionals approximates well the performance of people’s cog-
nitive algorithm. The small difference is probably due to additional cues the
cognitive algorithm depends on. These findings thus suggest that the parsi-
moniously simple, serial and satisficing pragmatic cues algorithm might be an
integral part of people’s cognitive algorithm for classifying pragmatic con-
ditionals.
Fig. 3 The pragmatic cues algorithm for pragmatic conditionals
Mind & Society
123
3 Conclusion
In sum, this commentary discusses how the pragmatic cues algorithm ad-
vanced by us (Lo
´
pez-Rousseau and Ketelaar 2004) readily accounts for the
pragmatic conditionals analyzed by Evans (2005). Reordering and rewording
our cues to follow his analysis, Fig. 5 shows the revised pragmatic cues algo-
rithm for pragmatic conditionals. Actually, this satisficing algorithm discrim-
inates over 90% of the conditional promises, threats, tips and warnings people
make. Certainly, the integration of both approaches sheds more light onto the
social function and satisficing functioning of pragmatic conditionals than each
approach alone.
Fig. 4 The percentage of correctly classified pragmatic conditionals by the algorithm and people
Fig. 5 The revised pragmatic cues algorithm for pragmatic conditionals
Mind & Society
123
References
Evans JStBT (2005) The social and communicative function of conditional statements. Mind Soc
4(1):97-113
Lo
´
pez-Rousseau A, Ketelaar T (2004) ‘‘If ...’’: satisficing algorithms for mapping conditional
statements onto social domains. Eur J Cogn Psychol 16:807-823
Luhrmann B (2002) William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet [DVD] 20th Century Fox home
entertainment
Newell M (2004) Mona Lisa Smile [DVD]. Columbia Tri-Star home video
Mind & Society
123
... The successful comprehension of conditionals often needs to take into consideration (amongst other things) the speech act communicated by a conditional (e.g. whether it is communicating a promise, a threat, a tip, or a warning; Fillenbaum, 1976;López-Rousseau & Ketelaar, 2004, 2006, and information about the probability of the event described by a conditional (Haigh, Stewart, & Connell, 2013). In the case of determining the specific speech act communicated by a conditional, comprehenders need to be sensitive to pragmatic information relating to whether the speaker has control over the event described in the consequent (then … ) clause, and whether the outcome associated with the consequent is seen as positive or negative for the recipient (Bonnefon, 2009;Bonnefon, Haigh, & Stewart, 2013;Haigh, Ferguson, & Stewart, 2014;Stewart, Haigh, & Ferguson, 2013). ...
... However, the utterance would be considered infelicitous if, rather than being uttered by Alice's boss, it is uttered by a student intern at the company who does not have control over promotions. Conditional threats require the producer to have control of the conditional's consequent event (Evans & Twyman-Musgrove, 1998;López-Rousseau & Ketelaar, 2004, 2006 while, in contrast, conditional warnings (e.g. "If you do not attend the charity fundraiser, then it may make you look bad.") can be legitimately uttered without the speaker having control over the consequent event. ...
... In speech act terms, promises and threats both fall under the general category of "Inducements", while tips and warnings fall under the category of "Advice". In a number of theoretical frameworks (e.g. the Pragmatic Cues Algorithm, López-Rousseau & Ketelaar, 2004, 2006, and the Utility Grid Framework, Bonnefon, 2009), the only difference between promises and threats, and between tips and warnings, is in terms of the polarity of the utility of the outcome event (i.e. positive for promises and tips, and negative for threats and warnings). ...
Threats may be negative promises (but warnings are more than negative tips)
Article
  • Feb 2016
In everyday situations conditional promises, threats, tips, and warnings are commonplace. Previous research has reported disruption to eye movements during reading when conditional promises are produced by someone who does not have control over the conditional outcome event, but no such disruption for the processing of conditional tips. In the present paper, we examine how readers process conditional threats and warnings. We compare one account which views conditional threats and warnings simply as promises and tips with negative outcomes, with an alternative account which highlights their broader pragmatic differences. In an eye-tracking experiment we find evidence suggesting that, in processing terms, while threats operate like negative promises, warnings are more than negative tips.
View
... This research was supported by a Leverhulme Trust grant (F/00 120/BT) awarded to the third author. Ketelaar, 2004 Ketelaar, , 2006). This two-stage Pragmatic Cues Algorithm uses speaker control of the consequent event (control or no control) and the subjective utility of this event (positive or negative) as cues to discriminate between conditional promises, tips, threats, and warnings with over 90% accuracy (seeFigure 1). ...
... These accounts distinguish between rapid, automatic heuristic processing, and slower, more effortful analytic processing (see, for a detailed review). Following the Pragmatic Cues Algorithm (López-Rousseau & Ketelaar, 2004, 2006), two possible cues that may inform the processing of conditionals are those driven by speaker control and utility. Speaker control and utility are central to this account and, given their salience, are obvious candidates for rapidly informing the early heuristic interpretation of a conditional speech act as it is comprehended. ...
... In the experiment below, we examine whether perceived utility (the second pragmatic cue in the Pragmatic Cues Algorithm) is also able to influence the early processing of conditionals. Finding evidence that readers are sensitive online toFigure 1. Pragmatic Cues Algorithm (López-Rousseau & Ketelaar, 2006). HAIGH, FERGUSON, STEWART conditional utility (and the extent to which it (mis) matches information provided by prior discourse) would be compatible with a view in which conditional utility plays a key role in the fast-acting heuristics that operate during the early stages of conditional processing. ...
An Eye-Tracking Investigation into Readers' Sensitivity to Actual versus Expected Utility in the Comprehension of Conditionals
Article
The successful comprehension of a utility conditional (i.e., an "if p, then q" statement where p and/or q is valued by one or more agents) requires the construction of a mental representation of the situation described by that conditional and integration of this representation with prior context. In an eye-tracking experiment, we examined the time course of integrating conditional utility information into the broader discourse model. Specifically, the experiment determined whether readers were sensitive, during rapid heuristic processing, to the congruency between the utility of the consequent clause of a conditional (positive or negative) and a reader's subjective expectations based on prior context. On a number of eye-tracking measures we found that readers were sensitive to conditional utility-conditionals for which the consequent utility mismatched the utility that would be anticipated on the basis of prior context resulted in processing disruption. Crucially, this sensitivity emerged on measures that are accepted to indicate early processing within the language comprehension system and suggests that the evaluation of a conditional's utility informs the early stages of conditional processing.
View
... Conditionals pose an interesting set of problems from a language processing perspective as their successful comprehension requires a number of levels of pragmatic and semantic analyses. These include those related to grammatical mood (Stewart et al., 2009), the speech act communicated (Fillenbaum, 1976; Haigh, Stewart, Wood, & Connell, 2011; López-Rousseau, & Ketelaar, 2004, 2006 ), the conditional probability of a conditional (Haigh, Stewart, & Connell, 2012; Oberauer & Wilhelm, 2003), and the extent to which readers are sensitive to the degree of (mis)match between the utility of the consequent clause of a conditional and the utility which a reader is likely to have anticipated based on prior context (Haigh, Ferguson & Stewart, 2012). Specifically, Haigh, Ferguson, and Stewart (2012) reported eye-tracking data that suggest that conditionals describing a negative outcome, but embedded in contexts in which readers should anticipate a positive outcome, result in a rapid disruption to eye movements. ...
... As they lack the performative verb (cf. " If you submit your research to the Journal of Physics, then I promise I will be publish it in the next issue), readers must utilize the broader pragmatic context, in this case the perception of speaker control, in order to arrive at the appropriate speech act interpretation (Bonnefon, 2009; Evans, Neilens, Handley, & Over, 2008; Evans & Twyman-Musgrove, 1998; López-Rousseau & Ketelaar, 2004, 2006). Currently, we do not know whether readers rapidly represent conditional speech act information as conditionals are processed. ...
... Speaker control in the context of conditional speech acts is an important issue in the conditional literature. In the Pragmatic Cues Algorithm of López-Rousseau and Ketelaar (2004 Ketelaar ( , 2006), whether the speaker has control over an outcome event plays an early role in determining whether a speech act is likely to be a promise or a tip. Additionally, Evans and Twyman-Musgrove (1998) showed that in a conditional reasoning task, the perception of control is important as it has an impact on the extent to which people draw logical inferences from conditional promises (see also Ohm & Thompson, 2004, for further evidence in support of the importance of the perception of control). ...
Sensitivity to Speaker Control in the Online Comprehension of Conditional Tips and Promises: An Eye-Tracking Study
Article
Statements of the form if … then … can be used to communicate conditional speech acts such as tips and promises. Conditional promises require the speaker to have perceived control over the outcome event, whereas conditional tips do not. In an eye-tracking study, we examined whether readers are sensitive to information about perceived speaker control during processing of conditionals embedded in context. On a number of eye-tracking measures, we found that readers are sensitive to whether or not the speaker of a conditional has perceived control over the consequent event; conditional promises (which require the speaker to have perceived control over the consequent) result in processing disruption for contexts where this control is absent. Conditional tips (which do not require perceived control) are processed equivalently easily regardless of context. These results suggest that readers rapidly utilize pragmatic information related to perceived control in order to represent conditional speech acts as they are read. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
View
... Conditional warnings provide an exam- ple of a familiar speech act. They are typically defined as if-then statements whose if-clause features an action of the hearer and whose then-clause features a state of the word that is undesirable to the hearer (Amgoud, Bonnefon, & Prade, 2007;Evans, 2005;López-Rousseau, Diesendruck, & Benozio, 2011;López-Rousseau & Ketelaar, 2006), for example: ...
View
Beyond the Conditional Sentence and Towards Cognitive Reality
Chapter
  • Jun 2019
This chapter argues that in order to develop a semantics that encompasses conditionals both with and without ‘if’, an explanatorily adequate semantic theory of conditionals in discourse has to kick the object of semantic study beyond that of the sentence to the level of speech acts. It provides a brief history of the debate regarding the degree to which context can inform truth-conditional content before proposing the radical contextualist theory of Default Semantics as one that can adequately capture the meanings of conditionals as they are used and understood by speakers; a brief introduction to the theory is offered at the end of the chapter.
View
Biscuit Conditionals, Conditional Speech Acts and Speech-Act Conditionals
Chapter
  • Jun 2019
This chapter discusses ‘biscuit conditionals’: a species of conditional in which the consequent is conditionally independent from the antecedent. It identifies a number of criteria by which biscuit conditionals are typically distinguished, before examining various types of biscuit conditionals, including conditional speech acts, metalinguistic conditionals, and directive if-clauses. It concludes that the dividing line between hypothetical conditionals and biscuit conditionals is not as clear-cut as might first appear, and moreover, from a functional point of view the distinction does not always make sense. The upshot is that there must be other principles for deriving the intuitive, primary meaning that a conditional gives rise to which is tangential to the criterion of the conditional relationship between the explicitly uttered parts.
View
Slippery Slope Arguments imply opposition to change
Article
Full-text available
Slippery Slope Arguments (SSAs) of the form if A, then C describe an initial proposal (A) and a predicted, undesirable consequence of this proposal (C) (e.g., “If cannabis is ever legalised, then eventually cocaine will be legalised too”). Despite SSAs being a common rhetorical device, there has been surprisingly little empirical research into their subjective evaluation and perception. Here, we present evidence that SSAs are interpreted as a form of consequentialist argument, inviting inferences about the speaker’s (or writer’s) attitudes. Study 1 confirms the common intuition that a SSA is perceived to be an argument against the initial proposal (A), while Study 2 shows that the subjective strength of this inference relates to the subjective undesirability of the predicted consequences (C). Because arguments are rarely made out of context, Studies 3 and 4 examined how one important contextual factor, the speaker’s known beliefs, influence the perceived coherence, strength and persuasiveness of a SSA. Using an unobtrusive dependent variable (eye movements during reading) Study 3 showed that readers are sensitive to the internal coherence between a speaker’s beliefs and the implied meaning of their argument. Finally, Study 4 revealed that this degree of internal coherence influences the perceived strength and persuasiveness of the argument. Together, these data indicate that SSAs are treated as a form of negative consequentialist argument. People infer that the speaker of a SSA opposes the initial proposal; therefore SSAs are only perceived to be persuasive and conversationally relevant when the speaker’s attitudes match this inference.
View
Pragmatic conditionals, conditional pragmatics, and the pragmatic component of conditional reasoning
Article
  • Jan 2012
This chapter argues that the pragmatic knowledge based component of the human reasoning system remains relatively unexplored. Moreover, the conversational use to which conditionals are put must also be addressed by the psychology of reasoning. It categorizes pragmatic conditionals, pointing out that their practical uses usually entail a decision-theoretic interpretation, in which actions and their consequences may vary in utility for a speaker or a hearer. The chapter examines a range of utility conditionals, including promises, inducements, and deontic conditionals, pointing out the pragmatic commitments they licence. It goes on to investigate conditional pragmatics, i.e., the pragmatic implicatures that conditionals might invite. It then introduces the conditional field, the complex of factors including co-tenable conditions and alternatives that make up what Rescher (2007) calls the 'enthymematic background' to a simple conditional statement, and which provides the most investigated pragmatic effects on human conditional reasoning. The final section on interactions between these pragmatic components provides fertile ground for further explorations of pragmatic effects in conditional inference.
View
Utility conditionals as consequential arguments: A random sampling experiment
Article
  • Aug 2012
Research on reasoning about consequential arguments has been an active but piecemeal enterprise. Previous research considered in depth some subclasses ofconsequential arguments, but further understanding of consequential arguments requires that we address their greater variety, avoiding the risk of over-generalisation from specific examples. Ideally we ought to be able to systematically generate the set of consequential arguments, and then engage in random sampling of stimuli within that set. The current article aims at making steps in that direction, using the theory of utility conditionals as a way to generate a large set of consequential arguments, and offering one study illustrating how the theory can be used for the random sampling of stimuli. Itis expected that further use of this method will bring more diversity to experimental research on consequential arguments, and more robustness to models of argumentation from consequences.
View
The psychology of reasoning about preferences and unconsequential decisions
Article
People can reason about the preferences of other agents, and predict their behavior based on these preferences. Surprisingly, the psychology of reasoning has long neglected this fact, and focused instead on disinterested inferences, of which preferences are neither an input nor an output. This exclusive focus is untenable, though, as there is mounting evidence that reasoners take into account the preferences of others, at the expense of logic when logic and preferences point to different conclusions. This article summarizes the most recent account of how reasoners predict the behavior and attitude of other agents based on conditional rules describing actions and their consequences, and reports new experimental data about which assumptions reasoners retract when their predictions based on preferences turn out to be false.
View
“If… ”: Satisficing Algorithms for Mapping Conditional Statements onto Social Domains
Article
Full-text available
  • Nov 2004
People regularly use conditional statements to communicate promises and threats, advices and warnings, permissions and obligations to other people. Given that all conditionals are formally equivalent--"if P, then Q"--the question is: When confronted with a conditional statement, how do people know whether they are facing a promise, a threat, or something else? In other words, what is the cognitive algorithm for mapping a particular conditional statement onto its corresponding social domain? This paper introduces the pragmatic cues algorithm and the syntactic cue algorithm as partial answers to this question. Two experiments were carried out to test how well these simple satisficing algorithms approximate the performance of the actual cognitive algorithm people use to classify conditional statements into social domains. Conditional statements for promises, threats, advices, warnings, permissions, and obligations were collected from people, and given to both other people and the algorithms for their classification. Their corresponding performances were then compared. Results revealed that even though these algorithms utilised a minimum number of cues and drew only a restricted range of inferences from these cues, they performed well above chance in the task of classifying conditional statements as promises, threats, advices, warnings, permissions, and obligations. Moreover, these simple satisficing algorithms performed comparable to actual people given the same task.
View
The social and communicative function of conditional statements
Article
  • Jun 2005
In this paper, I discuss conditionals as illocutionary speech acts whose interpretation depends upon the whole of the social context in which they are uttered and whose purpose is to affect the opinions and actions of others. I argue for a suppositional approach to conditional statements based in what philosophers call the Ramsey test and developing the psychological theory that conditionals elicit a process of hypothetical thinking in their listeners. By reference to the experimental psychological literature on conditionals, I show that in general conditionals, even ones that are basic or abstract in nature, are not treated as truth-functional or material by ordinary people. Drawing upon the suppositional nature of conditionals and the influence of pragmatic implicature, I discuss uses of conditionals as advice, inducement, persuasions and dissuasion, arguing that speakers use conditionals to try to influence the beliefs and actions of their listeners by shaping their hypothetical thought about possibilities.
View
The social and communicative function of conditional statementsIf ...'': satisficing algorithms for mapping conditional statements onto social domains
  • Jan 2004
  • 97-113807
  • Evans Jstbt
Evans JStBT (2005) The social and communicative function of conditional statements. Mind Soc 4(1):97-113 Ló pez-Rousseau A, Ketelaar T (2004) ''If...'': satisficing algorithms for mapping conditional statements onto social domains. Eur J Cogn Psychol 16:807-823
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet [DVD] 20th Century Fox home entertainment Newell M (2004) Mona Lisa Smile [DVD]. Columbia Tri-Star home video Mind & Society
  • Jan 2002
  • Luhrmann
Luhrmann B (2002) William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet [DVD] 20th Century Fox home entertainment Newell M (2004) Mona Lisa Smile [DVD]. Columbia Tri-Star home video Mind & Society
Mona Lisa Smile [DVD]. Columbia Tri-Star home video
  • M Newell
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet [DVD] 20th Century Fox home entertainment Newell M
  • Jan 2002
  • B Luhrmann
Luhrmann B (2002) William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet [DVD] 20th Century Fox home entertainment Newell M (2004) Mona Lisa Smile [DVD].
William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet [DVD] 20th Century Fox home entertainment
  • B Luhrmann