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...

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.

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