Processing Inferential Causal Statements

Theoretical Refinements and the Role of Verb Type

Datos Bibliográficos

ID11638647
AutoresMohamed Taha Mohamed (Ain Shams University, autor de correspondencia), Charles Clifton (0000-0001-5505-5330, University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Año2007
Volumen45
Número1
Páginas24-51
Fecha de publicación2007-12-17
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaDiscourse Processes (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0163-853X • E-ISSN: 1532-6950
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01638530701752333
OpenAlexW1986929496
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas34

An evidential causal relation like, “Because most distinguished students got bad grades, the teacher made some mistakes in evaluating his students' papers,” is more difficult to process than a factual one like, “Because he got tired after a long semester, the teacher made some mistakes in evaluating his students' papers” (Noordman & de Blijzer, 2000 Noordman, L. and de Blijzer, F. 2000. “On the processing of causal relations”. In Cause, condition, concession, contrast, Edited by: Couper-Kuhlen, F. and Kortman, B. Berlin: de Gruyter.. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Traxler, Sanford, Aked, & Moxey, 1997 Traxler, M., Sanford, A., Aked, J. and Moxey, L. 1997. Processing causal and diagnostic statements in discourse. Journal of Experimental Learning, Memory, and Cognition: Psychology, 23: 88–101. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Two experiments explored the distinguishing characteristics of different types of causal relations. Experiment 1 introduced a third type of causal relation—a deductive causal relation—such as, “Because grading a paper is a subjective process, the teacher made some mistakes in evaluating his students' papers.” Deductive causal relations are intermediate in difficulty between factual and evidential causal relations but behave in important ways like evidential relations. Experiment 2 found that using psychological verbs (e.g., like) to express evidential relations makes causal statements that express these relations more acceptable than their counterparts expressed using action verbs (e.g., destroy). The article concludes with a discussion of the main characteristics of different types of causal statements. It is argued that understanding the speaker's theory of mind is the basis for comprehending evidential and deductive causal relations. Finally, this article proposes a tentative framework for analyzing the comprehension of causal relations

Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Epistemology · Grading (engineering · Linguistics · Relation (database · Verb · Child and Animal Learning Development · Computer Science · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism · Philosophy · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development