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Coherence, not conditional meaning, accounts for the relevance effect

Missing-link conditionals like “If bats have wings, Paris is in France” are generally felt to be unacceptable even though both clauses are true. According to the Hypothetical Inferential Theory, this is explained by a conventional requirement of an inferential connection between conditional clauses....

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Autores principales: Bourlier, Maxime, Jacquet, Baptiste, Lassiter, Daniel, Baratgin, Jean
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10225734/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37255509
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1150550
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author Bourlier, Maxime
Jacquet, Baptiste
Lassiter, Daniel
Baratgin, Jean
author_facet Bourlier, Maxime
Jacquet, Baptiste
Lassiter, Daniel
Baratgin, Jean
author_sort Bourlier, Maxime
collection PubMed
description Missing-link conditionals like “If bats have wings, Paris is in France” are generally felt to be unacceptable even though both clauses are true. According to the Hypothetical Inferential Theory, this is explained by a conventional requirement of an inferential connection between conditional clauses. Bayesian theorists have denied the need for such a requirement, appealing instead to a requirement of discourse coherence that extends to all ways of connecting clauses. Our experiment compared conditionals (“If A, C”), conjunctions (“A and C”), and bare juxtapositions (“A. C.”). With one systematic exception that is predicted by prior work in coherence theory, the presence or absence of an inferential link affected conditionals and other statement types in the same way. This is as expected according to the Bayesian approach together with a general theory of discourse coherence.
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spelling pubmed-102257342023-05-30 Coherence, not conditional meaning, accounts for the relevance effect Bourlier, Maxime Jacquet, Baptiste Lassiter, Daniel Baratgin, Jean Front Psychol Psychology Missing-link conditionals like “If bats have wings, Paris is in France” are generally felt to be unacceptable even though both clauses are true. According to the Hypothetical Inferential Theory, this is explained by a conventional requirement of an inferential connection between conditional clauses. Bayesian theorists have denied the need for such a requirement, appealing instead to a requirement of discourse coherence that extends to all ways of connecting clauses. Our experiment compared conditionals (“If A, C”), conjunctions (“A and C”), and bare juxtapositions (“A. C.”). With one systematic exception that is predicted by prior work in coherence theory, the presence or absence of an inferential link affected conditionals and other statement types in the same way. This is as expected according to the Bayesian approach together with a general theory of discourse coherence. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-05-15 /pmc/articles/PMC10225734/ /pubmed/37255509 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1150550 Text en Copyright © 2023 Bourlier, Jacquet, Lassiter and Baratgin. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Bourlier, Maxime
Jacquet, Baptiste
Lassiter, Daniel
Baratgin, Jean
Coherence, not conditional meaning, accounts for the relevance effect
title Coherence, not conditional meaning, accounts for the relevance effect
title_full Coherence, not conditional meaning, accounts for the relevance effect
title_fullStr Coherence, not conditional meaning, accounts for the relevance effect
title_full_unstemmed Coherence, not conditional meaning, accounts for the relevance effect
title_short Coherence, not conditional meaning, accounts for the relevance effect
title_sort coherence, not conditional meaning, accounts for the relevance effect
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10225734/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37255509
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1150550
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