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Abstract
Background: Different authors argue that for pragmatic reasoning can occur, it is necessary to activate a mental module that allows reasoning about the mental states of oneself and others, this is known as theory of mind. However, the empirical evidence is not conclusive. Objective: We investigate the effect of the theory of the mind on the pragmatic reasoning of scalar implicatures, these are a special type of pragmatic inferences based on the linguistic expression "some". Methodology: For this, a 2x2 within-subject experimental design was carried out with a sample of 111 individuals between 20 and 45 years of age. Mentalistic and non-mentalistic stimuli were presented, and then the accuracy and speed of response was measured according the sentence verification task. Results: Significant differences were found in the response time of pragmatic sentences to mentalistic stimuli versus non-mentalistic stimuli. Conclusions: This allows us to infer that the theory of the mind plays a significant role in pragmatic reasoning, thus supporting the postgricean approach.
References
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