I'm very happy to share that I'll be joining @bergelsonlab.bsky.social at Harvard as a postdoc in September!! We'll work on how babies learn word meanings, and tons more!

How do children learn new words? Do they simply track word-object co-occurrences across contexts, or do they also use information about what speakers know and intend? With @mzettersten.bsky.social and @drbarner.bsky.social, I tackled this question in our new preprint! 1/🧵👇 osf.io/preprints/ps...

This paper explores how we reason about other people's minds when they make conditional statements, using some super creative methods cooked up by @ebruevcen.bsky.social. TL/DR, the inferences you draw about if>then statements depends crucially on the background knowledge of the speaker.

Ebru Evcen@ebruevcen.bsky.social · 2mo ago

New paper w/Alan Bale & @drbarner.bsky.social in Journal of Semantics!🎉 We show in 3 studies that conditionals get strengthened to "only if" depending on listeners' access to alternatives, constrained by QUD & speaker knowledge, paralleling other forms of pragmatic inference. doi.org/10.1093/jos/...

New paper w/Alan Bale & @drbarner.bsky.social in Journal of Semantics!🎉 We show in 3 studies that conditionals get strengthened to "only if" depending on listeners' access to alternatives, constrained by QUD & speaker knowledge, paralleling other forms of pragmatic inference. doi.org/10.1093/jos/...

Conditional inference and access to alternatives: the role of QUD and speaker knowledge in conditional perfection

Abstract. Conditional statements often imply meanings that extend beyond their literal content, influenced by contextual factors such as the Question Under

doi.org

Children actually CAN compute scalar implicatures & only fail when we proffer "worlds" that invite unintended inferences. Check out new work by @ebruevcen.bsky.social showing early success in a standard TVJ task for both disjunction & some/all & how this totally changes our lab's account of failire.

Ebru Evcen@ebruevcen.bsky.social · 2mo ago

New preprint w/ @drbarner.bsky.social, and probably the most fun project I've worked on!! Past studies find kids fail to compute scalar implicatures. Do those tasks test spontaneous interpretation, or do they proffer worlds kids would never consider? 🧵 osf.io/preprints/ps...

New preprint w/ @drbarner.bsky.social, and probably the most fun project I've worked on!! Past studies find kids fail to compute scalar implicatures. Do those tasks test spontaneous interpretation, or do they proffer worlds kids would never consider? 🧵 osf.io/preprints/ps...

New w/ @drbarner.bsky.social! We argue that children's struggle to represent the past and future in common tests of knowledge may stem from difficulties in hypothetical reasoning about imaginary timelines, rather than a lack of knowledge about time. 1/n academic.oup.com/chidev/advan...

Back to reality: Children's early temporal reasoning applies to real but not hypothetical events

Abstract. Time words like “yesterday” and “tomorrow” are hard for children to learn, and for researchers to study, because their referents change from day

academic.oup.com

Now out in Open Mind! @drbarner.bsky.social and I find that when people hear a conditional statement like “If you mow the lawn, you’ll get $5,” they often interpret it as “only if you mow the lawn”, a pragmatic, perfected meaning. doi.org/10.1162/opmi...

Already Perfect: Language Users Access the Pragmatic Meanings of Conditionals First

Abstract. Conditional statements often have two interpretations. For instance, the statement, “If you mow the lawn, you will receive $5”, might be understood to mean that mowing the lawn is just one p...

doi.org

This new project by the 🎉fantastic🎉 @ebruevcen.bsky.social shows in 4 studies that people’s first understanding of conditionals is pragmatic - using RT data, then with a cognitive load task. This is contrary to what’s found for other pragmatic inferences w/ interesting implications for acquisition.

Ebru Evcen@ebruevcen.bsky.social · 2y ago

New preprint w @drbarner.bsky.social! When you hear, "If you mow the lawn, you’ll get $5," do you immediately think, "No $5 if I don't?" Turns out, that's no coincidence - we show that people start with pragmatic interpretations of conditionals, considering literal ones when necessary. osf.io/mv3y8

New preprint w @drbarner.bsky.social! When you hear, "If you mow the lawn, you’ll get $5," do you immediately think, "No $5 if I don't?" Turns out, that's no coincidence - we show that people start with pragmatic interpretations of conditionals, considering literal ones when necessary. osf.io/mv3y8