Sometimes frequently means seldom: Context effects in the interpretation of quantitative expressions

doi:10.1016/0092-6566(74)90049-X

Journal of Research in Personality

Volume 8, Issue 1, June 1974, Pages 95-101

https://doi.org/10.1016/0092-6566(74)90049-X Get rights and content

Abstract

Subjects supplied numerical definitions for five quantitative expressions embedded in two high-frequency contexts, one moderate-frequency context, two low-frequency contexts, and with no context specified. Mean definitions differed significantly across contexts and expressions with a Context-Expression interaction (p < .01). The variance in definition of an expression embedded in a context generally increased with the discrepancy between its no-context definition and the context event's estimated frequency (p < .05). Variance in the definitions of the sampled expressions gathered over diverse contexts increased with the expression's no-context definition (p < .05). Thus, the mean and variance of an expression's numerical definitions depended upon both the expression and its context.

References (3)

M.D. Hakel
How often is often?
American Psychologist
(1968)

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Uncertainty expressions have several properties that make them a good testing ground for studying semantic and pragmatic adaptation. First, there is no consistent mapping between uncertainty expressions and event probabilities (e.g., Clark, 1990; Pepper & Prytulak, 1974), which suggests that listeners have to rely on additional contextual information (such as speaker identity) if they want to infer an event probability that a speaker intended to communicate using an uncertainty expression. Second, there is considerable inter-speaker variability in the use of these expressions (Wallsten et al., 1986) and therefore it is likely that listeners expect different speakers to use these expressions differently.
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This evidence comes overwhelmingly from translation and membership-function studies. Numerical translation is, for instance, affected by perceived base rates (Fischer & Jungermann, 1996; Pepper & Prytulak, 1974; Wallsten, Fillenbaum, & Cox, 1986; Weber & Hilton, 1990). For instance, translations are higher for “probable snow” in December than October (Wallsten, Fillenbaum, et al., 1986).
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This paper reports three experiments that test the Presupposition-Denial account of complement set reference. According to the theory, complement set focus arises when focus is on the difference between the amount conveyed by a natural language quantifier and a large presupposed amount. We call this difference the shortfall. In this paper, what is expected is explicitly manipulated in a production study to test the theory in two ways. First it is shown that when the quantity expected by a character is much larger than that denoted by a positive quantifier, some participants refer anaphorically to the complement set. Thus, even without a negative natural language quantifier the existence of a shortfall leads to complement set focus. Second, it is shown that when the quantity expected by a character is none, the production of complement set reference is reduced for negative quantifiers. This provides strong support for shortfall as the key mechanism in the presupposition denial account.
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^☆: The data described in this report were partially presented in Pepper (1972).

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Sometimes frequently means seldom: Context effects in the interpretation of quantitative expressions☆

Abstract

How often is often?

American Psychologist