title: Priming effect in indicative and subjunctive exceptive conditionals.
abstract: We report the results of three experiments that examine the mental representations underlying the comprehension stages of negative exceptive conditionals using subjunctive mood ('B a menos que A', 'B a no ser que A'; 'B excepto que A'='B unless A') and indicative mood ('B excepto si A' and 'B salvo si A'='B except if A'). The mental representations during the comprehension stage were analyzed using a priming methodology. All experiments showed that participants read the true possibility 'not-B & A' faster when it was primed by exceptive conditionals requiring the subjunctive mood than when it was primed by exceptive conditionals requiring the indicative mood; other possibilities ('B & A', 'B & not-A', 'not-B & not-A') were primed equally by both connectives. The experiments showed that (a) when people understand negative exceptive conditionals using the subjunctive mood, such as 'B a menos que A'/'B a no ser que A'/'B excepto que A', they access the true possibilities 'not-B & A' and 'B & not-A', and (b) when they understand negative exceptive conditionals using the indicative mood, such as 'B excepto si A'/'B salvo si A', they access 'B & not-A', but not 'not-B & A'. We discuss the implications of this for current theories of reasoning.
authors: University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain. Electronic address: oespinom@ull.es.
authors: Orlando
authors: O
authors: Espino
authors: University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
authors: Isana
authors: I
authors: Sánchez-Curbelo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D060865:Repetition Priming / Q000502:physiology*; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Deductive reasoning; Exceptive conditional; Mental models; Reasoning