Julien Musolino | Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (original) (raw)

Papers by Julien Musolino

Cognitive Science

The minimally counterintuitive (MCI) thesis in the cognitive science of religion proposes that su... more The minimally counterintuitive (MCI) thesis in the cognitive science of religion proposes that supernatural concepts are prevalent across cultures because they possess a common structure—namely, violations of intuitive ontological assumptions that facilitate concept representation. These violations are hypothesized to give supernatural concepts a memorability advantage over both intuitive concepts and “maximally counterintuitive” (MXCI) concepts, which contain numerous ontological violations. However, the connection between MCI concepts and bizarre (BIZ) but not supernatural concepts, for which memorability advantages are predicted by the von Restorff (VR) effect, has been insufficiently clarified by earlier research. Additionally, the role of inferential potential (IP) in determining MCI concepts’ memorability has remained vague and only rarely controlled for. In a pre‐registered experiment, we directly compare memorability for MCI and MXCI concepts, compared to BIZ concepts, while...

Decades of findings in psychology appear to indicate that human belief is thoroughly irrational. ... more Decades of findings in psychology appear to indicate that human belief is thoroughly irrational. At best, beliefs might be formed by heuristic processes that predictably lead to suboptimal outcomes. At worst, they are slaves to motivated reasoning, which allows people to come to whichever conclusions they prefer. In this paper, we argue that belief is best understood as the outcome of multiple processes, some rational and others susceptible to irrational influences. We suggest that belief updating, narrowly construed, may be a rational process that is uniquely sensitive to evidence and cognitively impenetrable to desires or incentives. Before any updating can occur, however, a series of processes mediate between information in the world and subjectively compelling evidence. We distinguish between updating proper and processes of evidence search, acceptance, hypothesis specification, integration of relevant information, and reasoning. We review research from philosophy and psychology...

Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2022

We evaluate the literature on the memorability of supernatural concepts (e.g., gods, ghosts, soul... more We evaluate the literature on the memorability of supernatural concepts (e.g., gods, ghosts, souls), itself part of a growing body of work in the emerging cognitive science of religion (Barrett, 2007). Specifically, we focus on Boyer’s (1994a, 2000, 2001) Minimally Counterintuitive (MCI) hypothesis according to which supernatural concepts tap a cognitively privileged memory-enhancing mechanism linked to violations of default intuitive inferences. Our assessment reveals that the literature on the MCI hypothesis is mired in empirical contradictions and methodological shortcomings which makes it difficult to assess the validity of competing theoretical models, including the MCI hypothesis itself. In light of this fractured picture, we make the case for an account of the MCI effect which dispenses with a memory mechanism specific to supernatural concepts. This account has several desirable properties. First, it preserves Boyer’s pioneering insights regarding the ontological status of su...

negative quantificational space*

Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 2019

In terms of their semantic and pragmatic properties, number expressions (one, two, three…) have s... more In terms of their semantic and pragmatic properties, number expressions (one, two, three…) have standardly been considered similar to quantifiers (some, a few, all). For instance, both kinds of expression form a scale: typically, an assertion containing a weaker member of the scale (Some/Two of the dwarfs loved Snow White) can be used to implicate that the stronger term of the scale doesn't apply (Not all/No more than two of the dwarfs loved Snow White). We report here results from two experiments with young speakers of Modern Greek which support the opposite conclusion: namely, that number terms and quantifiers behave differently in terms of the scalar inferences they support. We discuss implications of these findings for linguistic theories of the semantics/pragmatics of numerals, as well as for developmental theories of the acquisition of number words.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Maryland at College Park, 1997. Thesis research directed by Dept. of... more Thesis (M.A.)--University of Maryland at College Park, 1997. Thesis research directed by Dept. of Linguistics. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-71).

Encyclopedia of Language Development

ling.upenn.edu

Question/quantifier interactions have long been assumed to exhibit a subject/object asymmetry reg... more Question/quantifier interactions have long been assumed to exhibit a subject/object asymmetry regarding the availability of pair-list answers (May 1985). However, the precise nature of this asymmetry remains controversial, and individual acceptability judgments reported in the literature vary significantly (Beghelli 1997, Chierchia 1993, Szabolcsi 1997, Agüero-Bautista 2001). In order to assess the degree of such variability and determine what factors actually contribute to pair-list answer availability, we ran three psycholinguistic experiments using judgment tasks. Our results provide nuanced confirmation for a structural asymmetry, underscore the importance of the nature of the interacting quantifiers, and call into question the role played by the presuppositional status and the plurality of the question terms. Moreover, we uncovered the existence of a group of individuals who do not appear to exhibit the standard subject/object asymmetry for pair-list answers. We discuss the theoretical implications of this finding and suggest that an extension of Beghelli's (1997) account may be used to capture this hitherto unreported pattern. 0. * We would like to thank Shigeto Kawahara, Kristen Syrett and Marta Suarez for their feedback and suggestions; Melanie Kelliher and Max Kon for help with experiments and data analysis; all the members of the Rutgers Psycholinguistics Lab, the audience of RuLing 2010 and NELS 41 for insightful comments and questions.

Quantifiers are expressions that denote number and quantity. When quantifiers interact with each ... more Quantifiers are expressions that denote number and quantity. When quantifiers interact with each other or with other logical expressions in a sentence, the resulting interpretation may be ambiguous. In this paper, we focus on young chilren's understanding of the interaction of the universal quantifiers every and each with wh-expressions (who, which) in questions

Abstract: In a head final language, verb-raising is hard to detect since there is no evidence fro... more Abstract: In a head final language, verb-raising is hard to detect since there is no evidence from the string to support a raising analysis. This is so both for children acquiring the language and for linguists developing an analysis of it. If the language has a clitic-like negation that associates with the verb in syntax, then scope facts concerning negation and a quantified object NP could provide evidence regarding the height of the verb. Even so, such facts are rare, especially in the input to children, and so we might be led to expect that not all speakers exposed to a head-final language acquire the same grammar as far as verb-raising is concerned. In this paper, we present evidence supporting this expectation. Using experimental data concerning the scope of quantified NPs and negation in Korean, extracted from both adults and 4 year-old children, we show that there are two populations of Korean speakers: one with verb-raising and one without.

We introduce the first set of normed stimuli designed to resolve methodological and theoretical i... more We introduce the first set of normed stimuli designed to resolve methodological and theoretical issues that have muddled the interpretation of results on the memorability of supernatural concepts (e.g., ghosts, souls, spirits), an important line of research in the Cognitive Science of Religion (Barrett, 2000). We focus here on Boyer’s (1994, 2000, 2001) pioneering Minimally Counterintuitive (MCI) hypothesis according to which supernatural concepts tap a special memory-enhancing mechanism linked to violations of default intuitive inferences. Empirical tests of the MCI account have given rise to a vexed picture that renders meaningful interpretation difficult. The lack of a common standard of comparison among different studies, coupled with the presence of uncontrolled variables independently known to affect memorability, lie at the heart of these problems. We show that our new stimuli offer the hope of resolving these issues thereby establishing a more secure foundation for the study...

The interaction of universal quantifiers and wh-phrases in questions, such as Which class did eve... more The interaction of universal quantifiers and wh-phrases in questions, such as Which class did every student take?, gives rise to structural ambiguities. The availability of pair-list answers (Mary took Syntax, and Jane took Semantics) to such questions reveals whether the quantifier can take wide scope over the wh. In this paper, we use an acceptability judgment task to test whether, as some theoretical accounts suggest (e.g. May 1985), the quantifier position affects the likelihood of an inverse scope reading for distributive quantifiers, such as every and each. We show that pair-list answers remain less available for questions with object quantifiers than for questions with subject quantifiers even when the quantifier is each (contra Beghelli 1997). At the same time, speakers find pair-list answers to questions with each more acceptable than to questions with every, confirming that the distributivity force of a quantifier also plays a role. We discuss how these findings fit into t...

Language Learning and Development, 2018

In a recent article published in this journal, Moscati and Crain (M&C) showcase the explanatory p... more In a recent article published in this journal, Moscati and Crain (M&C) showcase the explanatory power of a learnability constraint called the Semantic Subset Principle (SSP) (Crain et al. 1994). If correct, M&C's argument would represent a compelling demonstration of the operation of an innate, domain specific, learning principle. However, in trying to make the case for the SSP, M&C fail to clearly define their hypothesis, omit discussion of key facts, and contradict the theory itself. Moreover, their presentation does not address the core arguments and alternatives against their account available in the literature and misrepresents the position of their critics. Once these shortcomings are understood, a very different conclusion emerges: its historical significance notwithstanding, the SSP represents a flawed and obsolete account that should be abandoned. We discuss the implications of the demise of the SSP and describe more powerful and plausible alternatives that provide a better foundation for ongoing work in language acquisition.

Language Learning and Development, 2016

In response to questions in which a wh-term interacts with a universal quantifier in object posit... more In response to questions in which a wh-term interacts with a universal quantifier in object position, such as Who picked every toy?, children as old as 5 years of age often provide a list, pairing toys with the people who picked each of them. This response pattern is unexpected, it has been claimed, because children appear to overproduce such pair-list answers in comparison to what would otherwise be expected in adults, therefore suggesting a non-adult grammar. However, not only have such comparisons been made to a hypothetical baseline of adult responses, but they also fail to take into account the range of possible answers that may be available for such questions, once certain syntactic and lexical manipulations are accounted for. We therefore lack sufficient evidence to fault the grammar for this response pattern. This article investigates this phenomenon from a fresh methodological and theoretical perspective, uncovering a more complex picture. We show, on the one hand, that children do overproduce pair-list readings to which questions with every, in comparison to adults. On the other hand, they also "underproduce" pair-list answers in response to similar questions with each. However, children are also sensitive to the syntactic position of the quantifier in the direction expected by a subject-object asymmetry. We therefore argue that a key part of the explanation for children's performance lies in immature lexical entries for the participating quantifiers. (1) a. Which toy did every child pick? b. Every child picked Mickey Mouse. c. Jane picked a plastic dinosaur, Mary picked Lincoln Logs, Alex picked a train. (2) a. Which child picked every toy? b. Jane.(=Jane picked every toy.) c. *Jane picked a plastic dinosaur, Mary picked Lincoln Logs, Alex picked a train.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Jan 17, 2016

Language Acquisition, 2015

The way in which an event is packaged linguistically can be informative about the number of parti... more The way in which an event is packaged linguistically can be informative about the number of participants in the event and the nature of their participation. At times, however, a sentence is ambiguous, and pragmatic information weighs in to favor one interpretation over another. Whereas adults may readily know how to pick up on such cues to meaning, children-who are generally naïve to such pragmatic nuances-may diverge and access a broader range of interpretations or one disfavored by adults. A number of cases come to us from a now well-established body of research on scalar implicatures and scopal ambiguity. Here, we complement this previous work with a previously uninvestigated example of the semantic-pragmatic divide in language development arising from the interpretation of sentences with pluralities and together. Sentences such as Two boys lifted a block (together) allow for either a Collective or a Distributive interpretation (one pushing event vs. two spatiotemporally coordinated events). We show experimentally that children allow both interpretations in sentences with together, whereas adults rule out the Distributive interpretation without further contextual motivation. However, children appear to be guided by their semantics in the readings they access, since they do not allow readings that are semantically barred. We argue that they are unaware of the pragmatic information adults have at their fingertips, such as the conversational implicatures arising from the presence of a modifier, the probability of its occurrence being used to signal a particular interpretation among a set of alternatives, and knowledge of the possible lexical alternatives.