In sentences such as “Some dogs are mammals,” the literal semantic meaning (“Some and possibly all dogs are mammals”) conflicts with the pragmatic meaning (“Not all dogs are mammals,” known as a scalar implicature). Prior work has shown that adults vary widely in the extent to which they adopt the semantic or pragmatic meaning of such utterances, yet the underlying reason for this variation is unknown. Drawing on theoretical models of scalar implicature derivation, we explore the hypothesis that the cognitive abilities of executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM) contribute to this observed variation. In Experiment 1, we show that individuals with better ToM are more likely to compute a scalar implicature and adopt the pragmatic meaning of an utterance; however, EF makes no unique contribution to scalar implicature comprehension after accounting for ToM. In Experiment 2, we replicate this finding and assess whether it generalizes to the comprehension of other pragmatic phenomena such as indirect requests (e.g., “It's hot in here” uttered to ask for something to be done) and metaphor (e.g., “to harvest courage”). This is the first evidence that differences in ToM are associated with pragmatic competence in neurotypical adults across distinct pragmatic phenomena.

中文翻译：

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执行功能和心理理论在语用计算中的作用

在诸如“有些狗是哺乳动物”之类的句子中，字面语义（“有些甚至可能所有狗都是哺乳动物”）与语用含义（“并非所有狗都是哺乳动物”，称为标量含义）相冲突）。先前的工作表明，成年人在采用此类话语的语义或语用意义方面差异很大，但这种差异的根本原因尚不清楚。利用标量含义推导的理论模型，我们探讨了执行功能 (EF) 和心理理论 (ToM) 的认知能力对这种观察到的变化做出贡献的假设。在实验 1 中，我们表明拥有更好 ToM 的个体更有可能计算标量含义并采用话语的语用意义；然而，在考虑到 ToM 之后，EF 对标量含义理解没有做出独特的贡献。在实验 2 中，我们复制了这一发现并评估它是否可以推广到对其他语用现象的理解，例如间接请求（例如，“It” s hot in here”要求做某事）和比喻（例如，“收获勇气”）。这是第一个证据表明 ToM 的差异与神经典型成年人在不同语用现象中的语用能力有关。