PMID- 24251989
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20150406
LR  - 20140614
IS  - 1747-0226 (Electronic)
IS  - 1747-0218 (Linking)
VI  - 67
IP  - 7
DP  - 2014
TI  - The conceptual representation of number.
PG  - 1349-65
LID - 10.1080/17470218.2013.863372 [doi]
AB  - The experiments reported here investigated the format of plural conceptual 
      representations using a picture-matching paradigm. In Experiment 1, participants 
      read sentences that ended with a singular noun phrase (NP), a two-quantified 
      plural NP, or a plural definite description [The parents handed the child the 
      (two) crayon/s] and then saw a picture of one or multiple referents for the NP. 
      Judgement times to confirm that there was overlap between the pictured object(s) 
      and a noun in the sentence showed an interaction between the NP's number and 
      NP-picture match. For singular NPs and two-quantified NPs, participants were 
      reliably faster to respond "yes" to a picture that had the exact number of 
      objects specified by the NP, but for plural definite descriptions, the effect of 
      the number of pictured items was not reliable. Experiment 2 extended this finding 
      to conceptual plurals. Participants read sentences biased toward either a 
      collective (Together the men carried a box-box is interpreted as singular) or 
      distributed (Each of the men carried a box-box is likely interpreted as plural) 
      reading. Experiment 2 showed the same interaction between NP conceptual plurality 
      and NP-picture match as that in Experiment 1. These results suggest that: (a) our 
      default conceptual representations for plural definite descriptions are no more 
      similar to images of small sets of multiple items than to images of singular 
      items; and (b) the difference between singular and plural conceptual 
      representations is unlikely to be simply the presence or absence of a plural 
      feature. The results are consistent with theories in which plurality is unmarked, 
      such that some plural NPs can refer to singular referents [e.g., Sauerland, U., 
      Anderssen, J., & Yatsushiro, J. (2005). The plural is semantically unmarked. In 
      S. Kepser & M. Reis (Eds.), Linguistic evidence (pp. 413-434). Berlin: de 
      Gruyter].
FAU - Patson, Nikole D
AU  - Patson ND
AD  - a Department of Psychology , The Ohio State University , Marion , OH , USA.
FAU - George, Gerret
AU  - George G
FAU - Warren, Tessa
AU  - Warren T
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
DEP - 20131212
PL  - England
TA  - Q J Exp Psychol (Hove)
JT  - Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006)
JID - 101259775
SB  - IM
MH  - *Association
MH  - Comprehension/*physiology
MH  - Concept Formation/*physiology
MH  - Female
MH  - Humans
MH  - Judgment/physiology
MH  - Language
MH  - Male
MH  - *Mathematical Concepts
MH  - Reading
MH  - *Semantics
MH  - Students
MH  - Universities
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - Conceptual representations
OT  - Language comprehension
OT  - Number
OT  - Plurals
OT  - Semantics
EDAT- 2013/11/21 06:00
MHDA- 2015/04/07 06:00
CRDT- 2013/11/21 06:00
PHST- 2013/11/21 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2013/11/21 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2015/04/07 06:00 [medline]
AID - 10.1080/17470218.2013.863372 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2014;67(7):1349-65. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2013.863372. 
      Epub 2013 Dec 12.