Taking the speaker’s perspective? Investigating quantifier and implicature processing in an AI-language training paradigm using EEG-VR
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Interpreting speaker meaning requires taking into account the speaker’s epistemic perspective, i.e., their access to relevant information. The extent to which listeners integrate this perspective during comprehension is known as the perspective-taking problem. We present the first EEG study to investigate the role of perspective-taking in the processing of quantifiers and scalar implicatures. Using immersive virtual reality, we asked participants to assist an AI, represented by a virtual agent, in learning to use quantifiers appropriately. Critically, the agent had limited access to the reference domain compared to the participant.Our results show that when the speaker’s information access is restricted, listeners initially process the semantic content of quantified statements from an egocentric perspective. Effects of the speaker’s perspective emerge only later, reflected in a sustained anterior negativity. For pragmatically ambiguous sentences containing ``some", we observe neither an effect of speaker perspective nor evidence for scalar implicature processing. We argue that contexts requiring consideration of the speaker’s knowledge primarily support Gricean, weak implicatures, which are computed relatively late as post-propositional inferences.
Source: PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints)
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7213411754