Research has shown that it requires less time to process information that is part of an objective causal relation describing states of affairs in the world ( She was out of breath because she was running ), than information that is part of a subjective relation ( She must have been in a hurry because she was running ) expressing a claim or conclusion and a supporting argument. Representing subjectivity seems to require extra cognitive operations. In Mental Spaces Theory (MST; Fauconnier, Gilles. 1994. Mental spaces: Aspects of meaning construction in natural language . Cambridge: MIT Press) the difference between these two relation types can be described in terms of an extra mental space in the discourse representation of subjective relations: representing the Subject of Consciousness (SoC). In processing terms, this might imply that the processing difference is not present if this SoC has already been established in the discourse. We tested this prediction in two eye tracking experiments. The results of Experiment 1 showed that signaling the subjectivity of the relation by introducing a subject of consciousness beforehand did not diminish the processing asymmetry compared to a neutral context. However, the relative complexity of subjective relations was diminished in the context of Free Indirect Speech ( No! He was absolutely sure. There was no doubt about it. She was running so she was in hurry ; Experiment 2). In terms of MST and the representation of subjectivity in general, this implies that not only creating a representation of a thinking subject, but also assigning a claim to this thinking subject requires extra processing effort.

中文翻译：

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因果关系，主观性和心理空间：在线话语处理的见解

研究表明，处理作为描述世界事务状态的客观因果关系的一部分（她因为奔跑而气喘吁吁）的信息所需的时间少于主观关系的信息（她必须因为她在奔跑而急着表达自己的主张或结论，并提出了支持性的论点。代表主观性似乎需要额外的认知操作。在心理空间理论（MST； Fauconnier，Gilles。1994.心理空间：自然语言中意义建构的各个方面。剑桥：麻省理工学院出版社）中，这两种关系类型之间的差异可以用话语表示中的额外心理空间来描述。主观关系：代表意识主题（SoC）。在处理方面，这可能意味着如果已在本文中建立了该SoC，则不会存在处理差异。我们在两次眼动追踪实验中测试了这一预测。实验1的结果表明，与中性情境相比，通过事先引入意识主体来发信号表示关系的主观性并不会减少处理的不对称性。但是，在自由间接演讲的背景下，主观关系的相对复杂性有所降低（不！他是绝对确定的。对此毫无疑问。她在奔跑，所以很着急；实验2）。就MST和总体上的主观性而言，这意味着不仅要创建思想主体的代表，而且要为该思想主体分配主张还需要额外的处理工作。