Syntax and intentionality: an automatic link between language and theory-of-mind

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Linguistics
• Social Cognition

Background:

• Intentionality judgments are crucial for social understanding.
• The influence of linguistic structures on these judgments remains an active area of research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how grammatical syntax affects attributions of intentionality.
• To explore the interplay between language processing and theory-of-mind mechanisms.

Main Methods:

• Three experiments were conducted using speeded and unspeeded intentionality judgment tasks.
• Participants evaluated ambiguously intentional subjects and objects within sentences.
• Varying cognitive load and explicit event consideration were employed.

Main Results:

• Grammatical subjects were more likely to be judged as intentional than objects, particularly under speeded conditions.
• This syntactic bias for intentionality was reduced when participants engaged in deeper processing of sentence-described events.
• Grammatical objects showed an unintentionality bias in speeded conditions.

Conclusions:

• Linguistic syntax exerts a significant, automatic influence on intentionality judgments.
• Two distinct processing routes for intentionality attribution exist: an automatic verbal bias and a more controlled, event-based evaluation.
• Findings suggest a close link between language and core theory-of-mind processes.