Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 19, 2025

Using Eye Movements Recorded in the Visual World Paradigm to Explore the Online Processing of Spoken Language
Published on: October 13, 2018
Early ERP Evidence for Children's and Adult's Sensitivity to Scalar Implicatures Triggered by Existential Quantifiers
Daniele Panizza1,2, Edgar Onea3, Nivedita Mani4,5
1Department of English Studies, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
Abstract:
How quickly do children and adults interpret scalar lexical items in speech processing? The current study examined interpretation of the scalar terms some vs. all in contexts where either the stronger (some = not all) or the weaker interpretation was permissible (some allows all). Children and adults showed increased negative deflections in brain activity following the word some in some-infelicitous versus some-felicitous contexts. This effect was found as early as 100 ms across central electrode sites (in children), and 300-500 ms across left frontal, fronto-central, and centro-parietal electrode sites (in children and adults). These results strongly suggest that young children (aged between 3 and 4 years) as well as adults quickly have access to the contextually appropriate interpretation of scalar terms.
More Related Videos
05:35Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
Published on: April 19, 2017
08:17A Semantic Priming Event-related Potential ERP Task to Study Lexico-semantic and Visuo-semantic Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder
Published on: April 12, 2018
Related Concept Videos
Schemas
Reason and Intuition
The Availability Heuristic
Piaget's Stage 2 of Cognitive Development
Revisionist Views of Adolescent and Adult Cognition
Empathy