Authors:
Greta Mazzaggio University of Trento

Search for other papers by Greta Mazzaggio in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
and
Luca Surian University of Trento

Search for other papers by Luca Surian in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
Restricted access

We investigated whether there is an association between autistic traits in the broader phenotype and the ability to compute scalar implicatures. Previous studies found that the frequency of autistic traits is higher in students of science than of humanities. Here we recorded the frequency of rejection of underinformative scalar items in students enrolled either in a science or in a humanities curriculum and assessed their autistic traits using the Autism-Spectrum Quotient questionnaire. We found that rejections were less frequent in science curricula students than in humanities curricula students. Moreover, rejections were associated negatively with autistic traits and positively with performance on Theory-of-Mind tasks. These findings suggest that autism cognitive phenotype is negatively associated with a propensity to spontaneously derive scalar implicatures.

  • Andrés-Roqueta, Clara and Napoleon Katsos. 2017. The contribution of grammar, vocabulary and theory of mind in pragmatic language competence in children with autistic spectrum disorders. Frontiers in Psychology 8. 996.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • American Psychiatric Association. 2000. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. Fourth edition. Text revision (DSM-IV-TR). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association (APA).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • American Psychiatric Association. 2013. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association (APA).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Antoniou, Kyriakos, Chris Cummins and Napoleon Katsos. 2016. Why only some adults reject under-informative utterances. Journal of Pragmatics 99. 7895.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Baron-Cohen, Simon. 1988. Social and pragmatic deficits in autism: Cognitive or affective? Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 18. 379402.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Baron-Cohen, Simon. 1989. Are autistic children “behaviorists”? An examination of their mental-physical and appearance-reality distinctions. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 19. 579600.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Baron-Cohen, Simon. 1997a. Are children with autism superior at folk physics? New Directions for Child Development 75. 4554.

  • Baron-Cohen, Simon. 1997b. Hey! It was just a joke! Understanding propositions and propositional attitudes by normally developing children and children with autism. Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences 34. 174178.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Baron-Cohen, Simon. 1998. Does autism occur more often in families of physicists, engineers, and mathematicians? Autism 2. 296301.

  • Baron-Cohen, Simon, Alan M. Leslie and Uta Frith. 1986. Mechanical, behavioural and intentional understanding of picture stories in autistic children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 4. 113125.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Baron-Cohen, Simon, Allan M. Leslie and Uta Frith. 1985. Does the autistic child have a ‘theory of mind’? Cognition 21. 3746.

  • Baron-Cohen, Simon, Sally Wheelwright, Carol tring-nameScott, Patrick Bolton and Ian Goodyer. 1997. Is there a link between engineering and autism? Autism 1. 101109.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Baron-Cohen, Simon, Sally Wheelwright, Richard Skinner, Joanne Martin and Emma Clubley. 2001. The autism-spectrum quotient (AQ): Evidence from asperger syndrome/high-functioning autism, males and females, scientists and mathematicians. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 31. 517.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Bott, Lewis and Ira A. Noveck. 2004. Some utterances are underinformative: The onset and time course of scalar inferences. Journal of Memory and Language 51. 437457.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Capps, Lisa, Jennifer Kehres and Marian Sigman. 1998. Conversational abilities among children with autism and children with developmental delays. Autism 2. 325344.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Chemla, Emmanuel and Raj Singh. 2014a. Remarks on the experimental turn in the study of scalar implicature. Part I. Language and Linguistics Compass 8. 373386.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Chemla, Emmanuel and Raj Singh. 2014b. Remarks on the experimental turn in the study of scalar implicature. Part II. Language and Linguistics Compass 8. 387399.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Chevallier, Coralie, Deirdre Wilson, Francesca Happé and Ira Noveck. 2010. Scalar inferences in autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 40. 11041117.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Chierchia, Gennaro. 2013. Logic in grammar: Polarity, free choice, and intervention. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Foppolo, Francesca, Maria Terese Guasti and Gennaro Chierchia. 2012. Scalar implicatures in child language: Give children a chance. Language Learning and Development 8. 365394.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Frith, Uta, John Morton and Alan M. Leslie. 1991. The cognitive basis of a biological disorder: autism. Trends in Neurosciences 14. 433438.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Grice, H. Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In P. Cole and J. L. Morgan (eds.) Syntax and semantics, vol. 3: Speech acts. New York: Academic Press. 41–58.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Guasti, Maria Teresa, Gennaro Chierchia, Stephen Crain, Francesca Foppolo, Andrea Gualmini and Luisa Meroni. 2005. Why children and adults sometimes (but not always) compute implicatures. Language and Cognitive Processes 20. 667696.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Happé, Francesca. 1993. Communicative competence and theory of mind in autism: A test of relevance theory. Cognition 48. 101119.

  • Heyman, Tom and Walter Schaeken. 2015. Some differences in some: Examining variability in the interpretation of scalars using latent class analysis. Psychologica Belgica 55. 118.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Hochstein, Lara, Alan Bale and David Barner. 2018. Scalar implicature in absence of epistemic reasoning? The case of autism spectrum disorder. Language Learning and Development 14. 224240.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Horn, Larry. 1972. On the semantic properties of logical operators in English. Doctoral dissertation. UCLA.

  • Jolliffe, Therese and Simon Baron-Cohen. 1997. Are people with autism and Asperger syndrome faster than normal on the Embedded Figures Test? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 38. 527534.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Katsos, Napoleon et al. 2016. Cross-linguistic patterns in the acquisition of quantifiers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113. 92449249.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Leekam, Susan R. and Josef Perner. 1991. Does the autistic child have a metarepresentational deficit? Cognition 40. 203218.

  • Leslie, Allan M. and L. Thaiss. 1992. Domain specificity in conceptual development: Neuropsychological evidence from autism. Cognition 43. 225251.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • MacKay, Gilbert and Adrienne Shaw. 2004. A comparative study of figurative language in children with autistic spectrum disorders. Child Language Teaching and Therapy 20. 1332.

  • Nieuwland, Mante S., Tali Ditman and Gina R. Kuperberg. 2010. On the incrementality of pragmatic processing: An ERP investigation of informativeness and pragmatic abilities. Journal of Memory and Language 63. 324346.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Noveck, Ira A. 2001. When children are more logical than adults: Experimental investigations of scalar implicature. Cognition 78. 165188.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Pijnacker, Judith, Peter Hagoort, Jan Buitelaar, Jan-Pieter Teunisse and Bart Geurts. 2009. Pragmatic inferences in high-functioning adults with autism and Asperger syndrome. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 39. 607618.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Pouscoulous, Nausicaa, Ira A. Noveck, Guy Politzer and Anne Bastide. 2007. A developmental investigation of processing costs in implicature production. Language Acquisition 14. 347375.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Premack, David and Guy Woodruff. 1978. Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4. 515526.

  • Reddy, Vasudevi, Emma Williams and Amy Vaughan. 2002. Sharing humour and laughter in autism and Down’s syndrome. British Journal of Psychology 93. 219242.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Ruta, Liliana, Domenico Mazzone, Luigi Mazzone, Sally Wheelwright and Simon Baron- Cohen. 2012. The Autism-Spectrum Quotient –Italian version: A cross-cultural confirmation of the broader autism phenotype. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 42. 625633.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Schaeken, Walter, Marie van Haeren and Valentina Bambini. 2018. The understanding of scalar implicatures in children with autism spectrum disorder: Dichotomized responses to violations of informativeness. Frontiers in Psychology 9. 1266.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Sigman, Marian, Judy Ungerer, Peter Mundy and Tracy Sherman. 1987. Cognition in autistic children. In D. J. Cohen and R. Paul (eds.) Handbook of autism and pervasive developmental disorders. New York: Wiley. 103–120.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Su, Yi Esther and Lin-Yan Su. 2015. Interpretation of logical words in Mandarin-speaking children with autism spectrum disorders: Uncovering knowledge of semantics and pragmatics. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 45. 19381950.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Surian, Luca, Simon Baron-Cohen and Heather van der Lely. 1996. Are children with autism deaf to Gricean maxims? Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 1. 5572.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Collapse
  • Expand

Editors

Editor-in-Chief: András Cser

Editor: György Rákosi

Review Editor: Tamás Halm

Editorial Board

  • Anne Abeillé / Université Paris Diderot
  • Željko Bošković / University of Connecticut
  • Marcel den Dikken / Eötvös Loránd University; Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics, Budapest
  • Hans-Martin Gärtner / Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics, Budapest
  • Elly van Gelderen / Arizona State University
  • Anders Holmberg / Newcastle University
  • Katarzyna Jaszczolt / University of Cambridge
  • Dániel Z. Kádár / Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics, Budapest
  • István Kenesei / University of Szeged; Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics, Budapest
  • Anikó Lipták / Leiden University
  • Katalin Mády / Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics, Budapest
  • Gereon Müller / Leipzig University
  • Csaba Pléh / Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Central European University
  • Giampaolo Salvi / Eötvös Loránd University
  • Irina Sekerina / College of Staten Island CUNY
  • Péter Siptár / Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics, Budapest
  • Gregory Stump / University of Kentucky
  • Peter Svenonius / University of Tromsø
  • Anne Tamm / Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church
  • Akira Watanabe / University of Tokyo
  • Jeroen van de Weijer / Shenzhen University

 

Acta Linguistica Academica
Address: Benczúr u. 33. HU–1068 Budapest, Hungary
Phone: (+36 1) 351 0413; (+36 1) 321 4830 ext. 154
Fax: (36 1) 322 9297
E-mail: ala@nytud.mta.hu

Indexing and Abstracting Services:

  • Arts and Humanities Citation Index
  • Bibliographie Linguistique/Linguistic Bibliography
  • International Bibliographies IBZ and IBR
  • Linguistics Abstracts
  • Linguistics and Language Behaviour Abstracts
  • MLA International Bibliography
  • SCOPUS
  • Social Science Citation Index
  • LinguisList

 

2023  
Web of Science  
Journal Impact Factor 0.5
Rank by Impact Factor Q3 (Linguistics)
Journal Citation Indicator 0.37
Scopus  
CiteScore 1.0
CiteScore rank Q1 (Literature and Literary Theory)
SNIP 0.571
Scimago  
SJR index 0.344
SJR Q rank Q1

Acta Linguistica Academica
Publication Model Hybrid
Submission Fee none
Article Processing Charge 900 EUR/article
Printed Color Illustrations 40 EUR (or 10 000 HUF) + VAT / piece
Regional discounts on country of the funding agency World Bank Lower-middle-income economies: 50%
World Bank Low-income economies: 100%
Further Discounts Editorial Board / Advisory Board members: 50%
Corresponding authors, affiliated to an EISZ member institution subscribing to the journal package of Akadémiai Kiadó: 100%
Subscription fee 2025 Online subsscription: 648 EUR / 712 USD
Print + online subscription: 744 EUR / 820 USD
Subscription Information Online subscribers are entitled access to all back issues published by Akadémiai Kiadó for each title for the duration of the subscription, as well as Online First content for the subscribed content.
Purchase per Title Individual articles are sold on the displayed price.

Acta Linguistica Academica
Language English
Size B5
Year of
Foundation
2017 (1951)
Volumes
per Year
1
Issues
per Year
4
Founder Magyar Tudományos Akadémia   
Founder's
Address
H-1051 Budapest, Hungary, Széchenyi István tér 9.
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Publisher's
Address
H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
Responsible
Publisher
Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 2559-8201 (Print)
ISSN 2560-1016 (Online)