Literature Reading Improves Resolution Of Mismatched Pronouns In Chinese Counterfactuals

Counterfactual conditionals’ are contrary-to-fact statements which are widely used in daily life to convey thoughts about what might have been. Mental Model Theory and Mental Space Framework have proposed that, different from fact-based processing, counterfactual processing triggers a dual mental representation/space(suppositional event vs. presupposed fact). This hypothesis has received extensive support from extant empirical studies, but it remains unsolved how the dual representations influence the real-time semantic integration and discourse coherence.Furthermore, previous studies have revealed a positive correlation between counterfactual thinking and various cognitive abilities such as Theory of Mind,pragmatic skills and fantasy proneness, which can all benefit from literature reading.Yet the direct correlation between literature reading and counterfactual sentence processing still remains unexplored.The present study, using event-related potentials (ERPs), investigates the following questions: 1) How does the referential processing in counterfactual context differentiate from that in real-world context? Whether the dual meaning of counterfactuals can improve anaphor resolution? 2) Will the effects of counterfactual context on referential processing be modulated by individual difference in literature exposure? Before the experiment, participants were selected based on the Author Recognition Test and Reading Habit Self-report, and later divided into literature exposure high level group and low level group. The present study mainly compared the P600 effects elicited by gender mismatched pronouns in three types of conditionals (causal vs. hypothetical vs. counterfactual; e.g. yinwei(because) /ruguo(if)/yaobushi(if-not) Wang Gang went abroad to study, he/she...)between these two groups (high level group vs. low level group).Results show that for the low level group, incongruent pronouns elicited P600 effects across all three types of conditionals, while for high level readers, the inconsistency effects were observed only in causal and hypothetical conditionals, with P600 effects disappeared and even reversed in counterfactual context. These findings indicate: 1) different from causal and hypothetical conditionals, the dual mental spaces and pragmatic implications of counterfactuals may prompt people to go beyond here and now to elaborate their mental models and entertain alternative interpretations, thereby increase the possibility of introducing new referent outside the discourse to resolve referential problems. 2) Long-time and substantial literature exposure would further enhance counterfactual thinking, leading high level readers more inclined to elaborate discourse with possible alternative inferences, while leaving low level readers habitually resort to more straightforward co-referential interpretation.Taken together, the present study suggests that, given the dual mental representation/ space,counterfactual context encompasses a more elaborate situation model for inferring novel referent to resolve mismatched pronouns. This pragmatic function can be further modulated by literature reading, specifically, substantial literature exposure will improve pronoun resolution in counterfactual context.