Santamaría Carlos, Espino Orlando, Byrne Ruth M J
Department of Cognitive Psychology, University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2005 Sep;31(5):1149-54. doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.31.5.1149.
The authors examined in 3 experiments the comprehension of counterfactuals, such as "If it had rained, the plants would have bloomed," and semifactuals, such as "Even if it had rained, the plants would have bloomed," compared with indicative conditionals, "If it rained, the plants bloomed." The first experiment showed that people read the negative conjunction, "not p and not q" faster when it was primed by a counterfactual than when it was primed by an indicative conditional. They read the affirmative conjunction, "p and q" equally quickly when it was primed by either conditional. The 2nd experiment showed that people read the negated-antecedent conjunction, "not p and q" faster when it was primed by a semifactual conditional. The 3rd experiment corroborated these results in a direct comparison of counterfactuals and semifactuals. The authors discuss the implications of the results for the mental representations of different conditionals.
作者通过3个实验，研究了与陈述性条件句“如果下雨，植物就会开花”相比，反事实条件句（如“如果当时下雨了，植物就会开花”）和半事实条件句（如“即使当时下雨了，植物也会开花”）的理解情况。第一个实验表明，当由反事实条件句引发时，人们阅读否定连词“非p且非q”的速度比由陈述性条件句引发时更快。当由任何一种条件句引发时，他们阅读肯定连词“p且q”的速度相同。第二个实验表明，当由半事实条件句引发时，人们阅读否定前件连词“非p且q”的速度更快。第三个实验在反事实条件句和半事实条件句的直接比较中证实了这些结果。作者讨论了这些结果对不同条件句心理表征的影响。
