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TitlePage

Title:

Strategiesofdeception:under-informativity,uninformativityandlies–misleadingwithdifferentkindsofimplicature

Authors:

GiulioDulcinati,UniversityCollegeLondon,g.dulcinati@gmail.com

MichaelFranke,UniversityofTübingen,mchfranke@gmail.com

NausicaaPouscoulous,UniversityCollegeLondon,n.pouscoulous@ucl.ac.uk

Keywords:lying;implicature;signallinggame;cooperation;Grice

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Strategiesofdeception:under-informativity,uninformativityandlies–

misleadingwithdifferentkindsofimplicature

Abstract

Conversationisoftencastasacooperativeeffort,andsomeaspectsofit,suchasimplicatures,have

beenclaimedtodependonanassumptionofcooperation(Grice,1989).Butanysystematicclassof

inferencederivedfromassumptionsofcooperation,suchasimplicaturescouldalsobe,onoccasion,

usedtodeceivelistenersstrategically.Hereweexploretheextenttowhichspeakersmightchoose

differentkindsof implicaturetriggers inanuncooperativegameofcommunication.Concretely,we

present a production study in the form of a cooperative or competitive signalling gamewith the

potentialofexploitingthreekindsofimplicatures,namelyexactreadingofnumeralexpressions,scalar

implicaturesandparticularisedAdhoc implicatures.Wefindthatwhile theexact interpretationof

numerals isused similarly to truth-conditional content, scalarandparticularised implicatureselicit

different strategies.We also observe heterogeneity in individual strategic behaviour. Expecting a

distrustfulreceiver,someparticipantsusedhighratesofuninformativehints,andequalratesoftrue

andfalsehints.Otherparticipantsusedahigherrateof liesandfalse implicatures,suggestingthat

they were expecting their interlocutor to infer implicatures as if they came from a cooperative

speaker.

Introduction

Grice(1989)famouslypresentsconversationasacooperativeactivity inwhichparticipantsabidea

cooperativeprinciple,whichbindsthemtomakeappropriatecontributionstotheconversation.From

thisprinciplefollowmorespecificmaximssuchasthefirstmaximofquantity:“Makeyourcontribution

as informative as is required” (Grice, 1989, p. 45). Speakers can exploit the maxims in order to

communicate implicit propositions (implicatures) of various types. For example, the speaker can

violatethefirstmaximofqualitytocommunicateaquantityimplicature.IfItellyouthatIusedsome

ofyournewshampooinacontextwhereitwouldberelevantandmoreinformativetoknowwhether

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Iusedallofyourshampoo,youmayinferthatthereasonwhyIamviolatingthefirstmaximofquantity

isthatthemoreinformativestatementisnottrueandthereforeinfertheimplicaturethatIdidnot

useallofyourshampoo.Thelasttwodecadeswitnessedawaveofexperimentalinvestigationofhow

differenttypesofquantityimplicaturesareprocessedandinterpreted;andinharmonywithGrice’s

account,theseinvestigationshavefocusedonsituationswherethecooperationandhonestyofthe

speaker is taken for granted. However, conversation also takes place in non-cooperative or

competitivesituations,wherethespeakermaybedeceptiveoruninformative.Politiciansareoften

goodexamplesofunhelpfulinterlocutors.Forinstance,considerthisevasiveanswerthatTheresaMay

gave in2016whenaskedwhethertheUKshouldhaveaccesstotheEUsinglemarketafterBrexit:

“WhatIwanttoseeisthebestpossibledealfortheUnitedKingdomintradeingoodsandservices”

(Bull, 2016). The use and comprehension of implicatures in non-cooperative settings is a vastly

understudiedtopic.Theveryfewexistingcomprehensionstudiesonthistopicsuggestthatlisteners

facedwith an uncooperative speaker tend to infer less implicatures than if they are facedwith a

cooperativespeaker(Pryslopska,2013;Dulcinati&Pouscoulous,2017).Additionally,tothebestof

our knowledge no published experiments investigate implicature production in uncooperative

contexts.Thisispreciselywhatthisstudywillfocusonandwewilllookattheproductionofdifferent

typesofquantityimplicaturesinanon-cooperativesetting.Itisparticularlyinterestingandtimelyto

fillthisgapintheliterature,firstlybecausethismethodallowsustocomparehowspeakersuseexplicit

andimplicitcommunicationstrategically,andsecondlybecauseitmayofferanewperspectiveonthe

differencesbetweenwellstudiedtypesofquantityimplicatures.

A non-cooperative speakermaydiffer froma cooperative one in that theymaybemore likely to

deceiveortobeuninformative.AlthoughGrice(1989)presentsconversationasacooperativeeffort,

he contemplates both the possibility that speakers may be uninformative by opting out of the

cooperativeprincipleorofamaximinanovertway,forexamplebysaying“Ican’ttellyouthat”,and

thepossibilitythattheymaybedeceitfulbycovertlyviolatingamaxim.Theparamountexampleof

covertviolationsofmaximsislying,wheretheliarcovertlyviolatesthefirstmaximofquality(i.e.“Do

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notsaywhatyoubelievetobefalse”;Grice,1989,p.46)andintendstheaudiencetoremainunaware

oftheviolation.Besideslying,therealmofverbaldeceptionincludesfalselyimplicating.Whiletolie,

atleastaccordingtotraditionaldefinitions(Isenberg,1973;Primoratz,1984),istosaysomethingthat

thespeakerbelievestobefalsewiththeintentiontodeceive;tofalselyimplicateistocommunicate

something believed to be false by means of a conversational implicature (Meibauer, 2014). For

example,ifIsaidthatIusedsomeofyournewshampoowheninfactIbelievethatIusedallofit,I

couldbefalselyimplicatingthatIdidnotuseallofyournewshampoo.Althoughthereisanongoing

conceptualdebateonwhetherfalseimplicaturesshouldbeconsideredlies(Meibauer,2005,2014)or

not(Dynel2011,2015)herewewilltreatthemasseparateforthepurposesofexperimentdesignand

analysis.Weletthedataspeakaboutanypotentialdifferencebetweenfalse implicaturesandlies.

Thereforethephenomenawhichweexpecttoobservewithpossiblydifferentbehaviouralsignatures

inourstudyareuninformativityoroptingout,liesandfalseimplicatures.

Wemayexpectthatexplicitandimplicitcommunication1(seeCartson,2002,2009andRecanati,2004

for a review of this distinction), which include lies and false implicatures respectively, are used

differently in non-cooperative contexts. One reason for this expectation is that in cooperative

conversationthesetwomodesofcommunicationareoftennotinterchangeableandinagivencontext

we usually have clear preferences as to whether a piece of information should be asserted or

communicatedimplicitly.ConsiderthefollowingexamplesadaptedfromRussel(2012):

1. Careful!Someofthemushroomsarepoisonous!

2. #Careful!Notallofthemushroomsarepoisonous!

Theutterancesin1and2carrythesamecontentexceptthattheexplicitcontentoftheutterancein

1isimplicitintheutterancein2andviceversa(seealsovanTiel,2014foradiscussionofasimilar

example). Sincewe infer from theexpression ‘careful’ thatbothutterances arewarnings, the key

informationthatthespeakerpresumablywantstoconveyisthatatleastsomeofthemushroomsare

1WewillassumethattheexplicitimplicitdistinctioncorrespondstothedistinctionbetweenGrice’swhatissaidandwhatisimplicated.However,seeCartson(2002,2009)andRecenati(2004)fordifferentperspectives.

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poisonous,andnotthatsomeofthemareharmless.Conveyingthekeyinformationasimplicitcontent

ratherthanexplicitcontentmakestheutterancein2soundodd.Intuitively,thismaybebecausein

thiscontextwewouldprefertocommunicatekeyinformationthroughtherelatively‘secure’channel

of explicit information as implicit communication is arguably more prone to misunderstanding

(Reboul,2017).Anotherreasonwhywemayexpectexplicitandimplicitcommunicationtobeused

differentlyinourstudyisthatsomefeaturesofimplicitcommunicationcouldbeadvantageousinnon-

cooperative contexts. For example, implicit communication offers the advantage of plausible

deniability (Pinker,Nowak& Lee, 2010). Since implicatures are cancellable the communicator can

deny having intended to communicate them. For example, after saying that I used some of your

shampoo,IcanclaimthatIdidnotmeanthatIdidnotfinishit,whichIcouldnotdoifIexplicitlysaid

thatIdidn’tuseallofit.Thisfeatureofimplicitcommunicationisusefulincaseswherethespeaker

wantstocommunicatesomethingthatmayincurthemsomepenalty,suchasproposingabribeor

communicatingfalseinformation.Reboul(2017)proposesthatimplicitcommunicationmayalsooffer

anotheradvantageinthatitmaybeacceptedmoreeasilybythehearerthanexplicitlycommunicated

content.Firstlysheclaimsthathearersaremorevigilanttowardscontentthatthespeakerisstrongly

committed to, and explicit content carries a higher degree of speaker commitment compared to

implicitcontent(Morency,Oswald&deSaussure,2008).Secondlysheclaimsthathearersareless

vigilanttowardscontentthatisthefruitoftheirowninferences,whichisthecaseforimplicaturesbut

notforassertedcontent.

Thepreviousstudiesthatareclosesttotheonewearepresentingarerecentstudieslookingatnon-

verbaldeceptioninthecontextofsignallinggameswheresignallershavetogivenon-verbalhints(e.g.,

images,maps)toareceiverplayerwhohastomakechoicesbasedontheinformationprovidedinthe

hints.Cruciallyinsomecasesthegameiscompetitiveandthesignallerbenefitsfromthereceiver’s

wrong choices, which provides motivation to deceive. Signallers can give true hints, false hints,

uninformativehints andmisleadinghints,which like false implicatures consist in conveying a true

piece of informationwhich leads the receiver to infer something false.Montague and colleagues

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(2011)foundthattheirplayerspreferredgivingmisleadinghintsratherthanfalsehints.Intheirgame

thereceiverdidnotknowwhetherthesignallerwascooperativeorcompetitiveandtheycouldchoose

tocheckwhetherthehintswerefalseandcalibratetheirtrustaccordingly,whichwasanincentivefor

thesignallernottobecaughtlyingasitwouldhavereputationconsequencesfortherestofthegame.

InasimilarcompetitivegameRansom,Voorspoels,PerforsandNavarro(2017)gavetheirparticipants

theoptionstogivetothereceivertrue,misleadingoruninformativevisualhints,butnotfalsehints,

andtheymanipulatedthesignaller’sexpectationsregardinghowsuspiciousortrustfulthereceiver

wouldbe.Because the receiverdidnot knowwhether their signallerwashonestordeceitful, the

signaller could pretend to be helping the receiver while in fact feeding them false ormisleading

information.Theyfoundthatwhensignallersexpectedatrustfulreceivertheyweremore likelyto

mislead,whereaswhentheyexpectedasuspiciousreceivertheyweremorelikelytobeuninformative.

Thesestudiesaresimilartooursfirstlybecausewealsoemployedacompetitivesignallinggameand

secondlybecausethetypesofdeceptiontheystudiedfollowthesamefundamentalmechanismsof

thekindsofverbaldeceptionweareinterestedin,whicharetocausesomeonetohaveafalsebelief

(Mahon,2007)eitherbycommunicatingsomethingfalse(i.e.falsehints,lies)orbycommunicating

somethingtrue(i.e.misleadinghints,falseimplicatures).

Oneimportantcomplicationofstudyingexplicitandimplicitcasesofverbaldeceptionisthatwhile

thestudiesonnon-verbaldeceptionthatwementionedcoulddrawacleardistinctionbetweenfalse

andmisleadinghints;drawingadistinctionbetweenliesandfalseimplicatureisnotstraightforward.

In two studies (Coleman&Kay1981,Hardin, 2010)whereparticipantswereasked to ratea false

implicatureonascalethatrangedfromanutterancebeingalietoanutterancenotbeingaliethe

averageratingwasnearthemiddleofthescale.Inparalleltotheseresults,studiesontheexplicit-

implicitdistinctionincomprehensionfoundthatlaypeoplearelikelytoconsiderimplicaturespartof

whatissaidundersomecircumstances(Nicolle&Clark,1999;Doran,Baker,McNabb,Larson&Ward,

2009;Doran,Ward,Larson,McNabb&Baker,2012).Doranandcolleagues(2012)askedparticipants

tojudgewhethersentencesthatcouldgiverisetoanimplicatureweretrueorfalseinthelightofa

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factthatcontradictedtheimplicature(e.g.judgingwhetherthesentenceIusedsomeofyourshampoo

istruegiventhatIusedallofit).Theyfoundthatparticipantsincorporatedscalarimplicaturesarising

fromquantifierssuchassomeandmostintothetruthconditionalmeaningofthesentence32%of

thetimeandimplicaturearisingfromcardinalnumbers(e.g.IhavethreecatsimplicatingthatIdon’t

havefour)53%ofthetime.Becausedifferenttypesofimplicaturesmaybedifferinwhethertheyare

consideredpartofwhatissaid,andthereforeinwhethertheywouldbeconsideredtobeliesifused

deceptively,inourstudyweaimedtogainamorecomprehensiveperspectivebyusingthreedifferent

typesofimplicatures.

We used three types of quantity implicatures: implicatures arising from numerals, the scalar

implicaturearisingfromthequantifiermostandadhocorparticularisedquantityimplicatures.The

quantityimplicaturesorupper-boundinterpretationsassociatedwithscalartermsandnumeralsare

drawnbynegatinganalternativeutterancewhereastrongertermonthesamelexicalscaleasthe

scalar/numeraltermisused.Forexample,theimplicatureof‘Iusedsomeofyourshampoo’arises

fromnegatingthealternativethat‘Iusedallofyourshampoo’.Andtheimplicatureorupper-bound

interpretationof‘Ihavethreecats’arisesfromnegatingthealternativethat‘Ihavefourcats’.This

contrasts with ad hoc (sometimes called particularised) quantity implicatures where the stronger

alternativecanonlyarisefromthecontextandnotfromthelexicon.Forexample,inthecontextwhere

Ann andRose have their birthdays together someonemight say ‘I bought a present forAnn’ and

implicatethattheydidnotbuyapresentforRosealso.Thestrongeralternativenegatedisthatthey

boughtapresentforAnnandRosebutitcanonlyariseinthiscontextas‘Ann’and‘AnnandRose’are

not on a semantic scale. Both scalar terms and numerals have been at the centre of theoretical

controversies concerning whether their upper-bound interpretation is an actual implicature or

whetheritispartoftheirsemanticordefaultmeaning(Levinson,2000;Geurts,2010).

Although some theorists have proposed that the upper-bound interpretation of scalar terms (e.g.

someandnotall)istheirdefaultmeaning(e.g.Levinson,2000;Chierchia,2004),recentexperimental

evidencesuggeststhatthescalarimplicaturesofquantifiers(i.e.someandnotall)arederivedinthe

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samewayasparticularisedquantity implicatures (seeKatsos&Cummins, 2010 for a review). The

distinction between scalar and particularised implicatures has received particular attention in the

acquisitionliterature,whereexperimentalstudiesoffermixedresults:somestudiessuggestthatpre-

schoolchildrenhavemoretroublecalculatingscalar implicaturescomparedtoadhoc implicatures

(Barner, Brooks & Bale, 2010; Stiller, Goodman & Frank, 2011) and others suggesting that they

calculate these two types of implicatures to the same extent (Katsos, 2009). Katsos (2009) asked

participantstoevaluateutterancesthatcouldgiverisetoeitherscalarorparticularisedimplicatures

incontextswherethecontentoftheimplicatureisfalse.Hefoundthatbothadultsandchildrenreject

scalar implicature utterances and ad hoc implicature utterances to the same extent, but adults

consider an under-informative scalar-implicature utterance to be a more serious violation of

informativitythananunder-informativeparticularisedimplicatureutterance.

Withregardstonumeralswehaveagaintwocamps,withsometheoristsclaimingthattheyhavea

lower-boundoratleastmeaningwhiletheexactinterpretationissuppliedincontextviaimplicature

(e.g., Horn, 1972; Gazdar 1979; Levinson, 2000) and others claiming that numerals the exact

interpretationofnumeralsisnotanimplicaturebutpartoftheirtruthconditionalmeaning(Carston,

19982; Breheny 2008; Kennedy 2015). Both the study of Papafragou andMusolino (2003) and of

Huang,SpelkeandSnedeker(2013)provideconvincingevidencethatnumeralshaveanexacttruth-

conditionalinterpretation(i.e.threemeans‘exactlythree’)byshowingthatpre-schoolchildren,who

arenotoriously‘bad’atcalculatingscalarimplicatures(Noveck,2001;Chierchiaetal,2001;Gualmini,

Crain, Meroni, Chierchia, & Guasti, 2001; Hurewitz, Papafragou, Gleitman & Gelman, 2006;

Pouscoulous, Noveck, Politzer, Bastide, 2007) tend to give exact interpretations of numerals.

Furthermore, Huang and Snedeker (2009) found thatwhile processing the upper boundmeaning

scalartermslikesome isslowerforadultsthanprocessingtheliteralmeaningofthequantifierall,

2Carston(1998)actuallyarguesthatcardinalshaveanunderspecifiedmeaningandthatwhicheversensetheyassumeincontext(i.e.atleast,atmostorexactly)contributestothetruthconditionalmeaningoftheutterance.

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processingtheexactmeaningofnumeralsisjustasfast;suggestingthattheformerinvolvesdrawing

apragmaticinferenceandtheseconddoesnot.

In this study we aim to explore how people use explicit and implicit communication in a non-

cooperativecontext.Weaskedparticipantstoplayasignallinggamesimilartotheoneemployedby

Ransomandcolleagues(2017)wheretheyhadtoproducehintsforareceivereitherinacooperative

orinacompetitivescenario.Ourgamehadanumberoffundamentaldifferencesfromthegameused

byRansomandcolleagues.Firstly,ourparticipantsweretoldthatthereceiverknewwhetherthegame

wascooperativeorcompetitive.Thisremovedthepossibilityforsignallerstopretendthattheywere

cooperativewhen theiractualgoalwas tomisinformthe receiver.This featureof thecompetitive

scenario eliminates the possibility of cooperation and, from a Gricean perspective, should push

signallers towards the strategy of opting out and being uninformative. Secondly, in our game

participantsgavelinguistichintsbycompletingshortdescriptions.Sincethesehintsareassertions,the

falsehintsusedinthegamesarelies, inthetraditionalsense,andthemisleadinghintsgiveriseto

falseimplicatures.Thirdly,thedescriptiontemplatesthatsignallerscompletedconstrainedtheirhints

intopre-determinedcategories.Halfofthedescriptiontemplatespushedparticipantstoconveythe

hint explicitly and half of them through an implicature – belonging to one of three types: ad hoc

quantityimplicatures,linkedtothescalarquantifiermostortotheuseofcardinals.

Methods

Materialsanddesign

Thegameusedinthisparadigmisasignallinggamewithtwoplayers.Eachroundofthegamehastwo

cardssuchasthecardsinFigure1:a‘winning’cardanda‘losing’card.Thesignallerknowswhichone

isthewinningcardandtheyhavetodescribeit.Thereceiverseesthesametwocardsbuttheydon’t

knowwhichoneisthewinningcard.Thereceiverhastodecidewhichoneisthewinningcardwith

thehelpofthedescriptionmadebythesender.

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Figure1winningcardandlosingcardassociatedtothetemplatedescription“Onthewinningcardalloftheobjectsare___”

Participantsinourexperimentonlyplayedtheroleofthedescriber,whilethereceiverplayerwasa

virtual player. Participants were assigned to one of two conditions: a cooperative condition or a

competitivecondition.Inthecooperativeconditionparticipantswereaskedtohelpthereceiverfind

asmanywinningcardsaspossible(agameofpurecooperation,ingametheoreticterms),whileinthe

competitiveconditiontheirgoalwastomakethereceiverclickonasmanylosingcardsaspossible(a

so-calledzerosumgame).

Materialsincludedintotal36items(AppendixA),whichcorrespondedto36roundsofthegame:18

experimentalitemsand18controlitems.Eachitemconsistedofatemplatedescriptionandthetwo

cards:thewinningcard,markedbyagreenoutline,andthelosingcard,markedbyaredoutline(see

Figure1).Ratherthanwritethewholedescriptionofthewinningcard,participantswereaskedto

completeapre-madedescriptionwithonlyoneword(e.g.seetemplatedescriptionforFigure1).All

itemswereconstructedinsuchawaythattheyhadtwoobviouscompletions,referringeithertothe

shapeorthecolouroftheobjectsdisplayedinthecards(greenvs.pinkandrocketsvs.umbrellasin

theexampleinFigure1).Controlitemsuseddescriptiontemplatescontainingeitherthequantifiers

allornoneandtheirmostobviouscompletionswereatrueassertionandafalseassertionaboutthe

winning card. Experimental itemsuseddescriptions that couldgive rise to three typesofquantity

implicatures:exactinterpretationofnumerals,scalarimplicaturesassociatedwiththequantifiermost

orparticularisedadhocquantity implicatures.Experimental itemswereconstructed insuchaway

that oneof the twomost accessible completions resulted in a true assertion giving rise to a true

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implicaturewhiletheothermostobviouscompletionproducedatruedescriptiongivingrisetoafalse

implicature.Withineachcategoryofitems,controlandexperimental,wecounterbalancedwhetherit

wasmentioningthecolourortheshapeoftheobjectthatgaverisetothefalseassertionforcontrol

itemsortothefalseimplicatureforexperimentalitems.Thefalseassertionsandfalseimplicaturesin

eachitemwerefalseofthewinningcardbuttrueofthelosingcard,sothattheycouldbeusedto

deceivetheguesser intothinkingthatthe losingcardwasactuallythewinningcard. InweTable1

provideexamplesforeachcategoryofitems.

Table1Examplesofeachcategoryofitems

ItemType Description Truecompletion

Falsecompletion

Cards

Control(All)

On the winning cardallof theobjectsare___

umbrellas rockets

Control(None)

On the winning cardnone of the objectsare___

blue green

Experimental(Numeral)

On the winning cardtwo of the objectsare___

blue mugs

Experimental(Most)

On the winning cardmost of the objectsare___

lamps yellow

Experimental(Adhoc)

On the winning cardthe objects in themiddleroware___

green apples

ParticipantsandProcedure

We recruited 103 native English speakers (66 females, Mean Age = 28.73) from the online

crowdsourcingwebsiteprolific.co.ukanddirectedthemtoaQualtricswebsitewhereourexperiment

washosted.Participantsweretoldthattheywouldplayagamewheretheywouldhavetocomplete

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descriptionswithoneword.Sincethetaskrequirednormalcolourvisionwetestedparticipantsusing

twoplatesfromtheIshiharacolour-blindnesstest(Ishihara,1917)andparticipantswhofailedthetest

werepreventedfromcontinuingtheexperiment.Eachparticipantwasrandomlyassignedtoeithera

cooperativeoracompetitiveconditioninabetween-subjectsdesign.Participantsinbothconditions

weretoldthattheotherplayerscoredpointsbyclickingonwinningcardsandthatineachroundhe

orshewouldreadtheirdescriptionanduse it todecidewhichcardtoclickon.Participants in the

cooperativeconditionweretoldthattheythemselveswouldscorepointswhentheguesserclickedon

a winning card. Consequently, their goal was to help the guesser. Instead, participants in the

competitiveconditionweretoldthattheywouldscorepointswhentheguesserclickedonthelosing

cards.Consequently,theirgoalwastomaketheguesserlose.Participantsinthecompetitivecondition

wereexplicitlytoldthattheotherplayerknewthatthepersonwritingthedescriptionswasplaying

against themandvice versa forparticipants in the cooperative condition. Thiswas toensure that

participantsinthecompetitiveconditionknewthattheycouldnotpretendtobecooperativeasthe

otherplayerwouldexpectthemtobeuncooperative.

Participantsinbothconditionsweretoldthattheotherplayerdidnotknowthattheywerecompleting

thedescriptionsinsteadofwritingthemfreely.Thiswastopreventparticipantsfromanticipatingthat

theotherplayerwouldthinkthatthereasonwhytheyhadnotutteredamoreinformativedescription

in experimental itemswas because the game prevented them,whichwould effectively block the

derivationofquantityimplicatures.

Participantsinbothconditionsweretoldthattheymustcompletethedescriptionswithonlyoneword

andtheywereexplicitlytoldthattheywereallowedtolie.Beforeallowingparticipantstoperformthe

actual task of the experiment we asked them four multiple choice questions to check their

understandingofthegameandwepreventedparticipantswhoansweredincorrectlytoanyofthe

fourquestionsfromcontinuing.Instructionsforbothconditionsandcontrolquestionsarereportedin

AppendixB.

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Eachparticipantsawallofthe36 itemsdividedintotworandomizedblocks.Participantswerenot

givenfeedbackonthechoicesofthereceiverastheybelievedthatthereceiverwouldplaythegame

in a second phase. After the last item participants were asked to predict their performance and

estimateonan11-pointscalerangingfrom0%to100%whichpercentageofroundstheguesserwho

wouldreadtheirdescriptionswouldclickonthewinningcard.

Results

DescriptionswereautomaticallycodedusinganRscriptwhichclassifiedeachentryaccordingtoa

predefinedlistofresponsetypesforeachitem.Thelistwasconstructedaprioriandthenadjusted

afterinspectionofthedatatoaccommodatespellingvariantsandunforeseenstrategies.Two-word

entries,whichwereexplicitlyforbiddenintheinstructions,wereexcludedfromtheanalysis.Because

ofacounterbalancingerrorweexcludedtwooutofthesixadHocitemsfromtheanalysis.

Wecategorisedeachdescriptioninoneoffourcategories:trueandfalse,whichcorrespondedtothe

twomostobviouscompletionsthatweanticipated(seeTable1),aswellasuninformativeandother.

Weclassifiedasuninformativethosedescriptionswhichcouldeitherapplytoboththewinningcard

andthelosingcardortoneither.Forexample,anuninformativeresponsefortheallcontrolitemin

Table1was“Onthewinningcardallof theobjectsarequaint”,andforthenonecontrol items in

whichbothcardscontainhelicopters“Onthewinningcardnoneoftheobjectsarehelicopters”.We

classifiedasotherdescriptions thatattempted todescribeonlyonecardbutnot through the two

obviouscompletionsweexpected.Thesedescriptionmainlyfellinoneoftwocategoriesofalternative

strategies.Onestrategyconsistedinmentioninganobjectassociatedonlywithonecardeventhough

thisresultedinastatementthatwasfalseofbothcards.Anexampleofthisstrategyforthemostitem

inTable1was“Onthewinningcardmostoftheobjectsaretelephones”,whichreferstothewinning

cardwheretelephonesarepresenteventhoughmostoftheobjectsarelamps.Theotheralternative

strategyconsistedinmakingreferencetowhethertheobjectssingledoutbythedescriptionwerethe

same ordifferent from the other objects in the card and relying on the preferred reading of the

statementasreferringtotheshapeoftheobjectsratherthanthecolour.Anexampleofthisstrategy

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fortheadhociteminTable1was“Onthewinningcardtheobjectsinthemiddlerowareidentical”.

Becausetheamountofdatainthesetwocategorieswasrelativelysmallwedecidedtogroupthem

togetherunderthecategoryofotherstrategiesforthepurposeofouranalysis.

Inthecooperativecondition(Figure2)wefoundthatparticipantshadanoverwhelmingpreference

for true descriptions in both types of control items (all and none items) and in items containing

numerals.Inthemostandadhocitemsparticipantshadapreferencefortruedescriptionsbutthey

alsogaveaconsiderablenumberoffalsedescriptions.mostandparticularlyadhocitemsalsodiffered

fromtheotheritemcategoriesbecauseofthehighrateofotherresponsesgivenbyparticipants:12%

oftheresponsesformost itemsand30%foradhoc items. Inthepredictedperformancequestion

participantsinthecooperativeconditionestimatedthatthereceiverwouldclickonthewinningcard

78.15%ofthetime.

Figure2Proportionofresponsetypesinthecooperativecondition

In the competitive condition (Figure3) participants gavemostly equal numbers of true and false

descriptions for all types of items. Participants also gave a considerable amount of uninformative

descriptions incontrol itemsand itemswithnumerals.Therateofuninformativedescriptionswas

lowerformostandadhocItems.Mostandadhocitemsalsoexhibitedahigherrateofotherresponses

than other item categories but not as large as in the cooperative condition. In the predicted

performancequestionparticipants in thecompetitiveconditionestimated that the receiverwould

96%

93%

59%

46%

28%

22%

12%

30%

Control

Numerals

Most

AdHoc

True False Uninformative Other

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clickonthewinningcard49.82%ofthetime,whichwasasignificantlylowerestimatethantheone

givenbyparticipantsinthecooperativecondition(t(98.81)=-8.351,p<0.001).

Figure3Proportionsofresponsetypesinthecompetitivecondition

Weanalysedthedatabyrunningthreebinomialregressionmodels.Eachmodelregressesadifferent

outcomevariableonthesamepredictors:condition,itemtypeandtheirinteraction.Itemtypeisa

four-leveldummycodedcategoricalpredictorwithcontrolitemsasthereferencelevel.Conditionisa

two-leveldummycodedcategoricalpredictorwiththecompetitiveconditionasthereferencelevel.

Therefore, the simple effect of the cooperative condition represents the difference between

conditions for control items; the simple effects of Numerals, Most and ad hoc represent their

differencefromcontrolitemsinthecompetitivecondition,andtheirinteractionswithconditionfactor

expresshowtheirdifferencefromthecontrolitemschangesinthecooperativecondition.

Model1addressesthequestionofwhatfactorsaffectthepreferenceforafalsedescriptionovera

truedescriptionandtheoutcomevariablewasabinaryvariablewheretruedescriptionswerecoded

as0andfalsedescriptionswerecodedas1.ThedetailsoftheanalysisaresummarisedinTable2.The

threetypesofexperimentalitemsarenotsignificantlydifferentfromcontrolitemsinthecompetitive

condition.Thenegativeeffectofthecooperativeconditionindicatesthatparticipantswerelesslikely

togivefalsedescriptionsforcontrolitemsinthecooperativeconditioncomparedtothecompetitive

condition.Thesignificantinteractionsofmostandadhocindicatethatthedifferencebetweenthese

37%

32%

40%

37%

41%

34%

47%

51%

22%

33%

6% 7%

10%

Control

Numerals

Most

AdHoc

True False Uninformative Other

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items from the control items in the cooperative condition isdifferent from theirdifference in the

competitivecondition.Wedonotfindevidencethatthiswasthecasefornumerals.

Table2.Model1

Β S.E. Z p-value(intercept) 0.08 0.07 1.14 .254Numerals -0.03 0.15 -0.18 .854Most 0.07 0.14 0.50 .613AdHoc 0.24 0.16 1.48 .139Cooperative -4.22 0.29 -14.62 <.001Numerals*Cooperative 0.39 0.52 0.74 .459Most*Cooperative 3.32 0.34 9.77 <.001AdHoc*Cooperative 3.19 0.37 8.53 <.001Model2addressesthequestionofwhatfactorsaffectthepreferenceforanuninformativedescription

overallothertypesofdescriptions(true,falseandother)andtheoutcomevariableisabinaryvariable

where uninformative descriptionswere coded as 1 and all other responseswere coded as 0. The

details of the analysis are summarised in Table 3. The negative simple effect of the cooperative

condition indicates thatparticipantswere less likely togiveuninformativedescriptions for control

itemsinthecooperativeconditioncomparedtothecompetitivecondition.Thenegativesimpleeffects

ofmostandadhoc indicatethatparticipantswerelesslikelytogiveuninformativedescriptionsfor

these itemscomparedtocontrol items in thecompetitivecondition.Onthecontrary, thepositive

simple effect of numerals indicates that participants were more likely to give uninformative

descriptions for these items compared to controls in the competitive condition. The significant

interactionindicatesthatthedifferencebetweenadhoc itemsandcontrolitemsisdifferentinthe

cooperativeconditioncomparedtothecompetitivecondition.Infact,whiletheratesofuninformative

descriptionsforcontrolitemsandadhocitemsisroughlythesameinthecooperativecondition(i.e.

2%),theyareconsiderablydifferentinthecompetitivecondition.

Table3.Model2

Β S.E. Z p-value(intercept) -1.27 0.08 -16.68 <.001Numerals 0.55 0.14 3.96 <.001Most -1.49 0.24 -6.14 <.001

16

AdHoc -2.32 0.42 -5.52 <.001Cooperative -2.40 0.23 -10.27 <.001Numerals*Cooperative 0.17 0.38 0.45 0.655434Most*Cooperative 0.22 0.78 0.28 0.779232AdHoc*Cooperative 2.39 0.66 3.64 <.001Model3addressesthequestionofwhatfactorspushedparticipantstoresorttootherdescriptions

insteadofgivingtrue,falseoruninformativedescriptions.Theoutcomevariableforthismodelwasa

binaryvariablewhereotherdescriptionswerecodedas1andallotherresponseswerecodedas0.

The details of the analysis are summarised in Table 4. The only significant effects are the simple

positiveeffectsofmostandadhoc,whichindicatethatparticipantsweremorelikelytogiveother

descriptions to these items than to control items in the competitive condition. The fact that their

interactionsarenotsignificantmeansthatwehavenoevidencethatthistrendwasanydifferentin

thecooperativecondition.

Table4.Model3

β S.E. Z p-value(intercept) -6.915 1 -6.911 <.001Numerals 1.797 1.226 1.465 0.143Most 4.35 1.023 4.253 <.001AdHoc 4.747 1.024 4.634 <.001Cooperative -13.651 609.583 -0.022 0.982Numerals*Cooperative -1.797 1219.166 -0.001 0.999Most*Cooperative 14.262 609.58 0.02 0.981AdHoc*Cooperative 14.962 609.58 0.02 0.98Although theoverall proportionsof true and falsedescriptions in the competitive condition seem

roughlyequalforeachcategoryofitems(seeFigure3),wefoundthattheseoverallproportionswere

the result of different, sometimes opposed, individual strategies. For example, some participants

consistentlygavefalsedescriptionswhileothersconsistentlygavetruedescriptions,andwefound

thatthesestrategieswerereflectedintheperformancepredictionsthatparticipantsgaveaboutthe

receiverwhowouldreadtheirdescriptions.Forthisreasonweperformedaclusteringanalysisonthe

participantsinthecompetitiveconditioninordertofindoutwhethertheseindividualstrategiescould

be classified under a number of meaningful strategy profiles. We performed k-means clustering

17

analysisinRusingfourvariablesforeachparticipant:overallproportionoftruedescriptions,overall

proportion of false descriptions, overall proportion of uninformative descriptions and expected

performanceof thereceiver.Usingtheaveragesilhouettemethodology (Rousseeuw,1987),which

allows to visually compare the quality of different clustering solutions in terms of tightness and

separation of the clusters in each solution, we determined that the clustering solution that best

summarisedthedatawasathree-clustersolution.ThethreeclustersaresummarisedinTable5which

reports each cluster’s average values of the four variables we used in the analysis (i.e. expected

performance, overall proportions of true, false and uninformative descriptions; in the table as

clusteringvariables)togetherwitheachcluster’saverageproportionsofdescriptiontypesforeach

categoryofitems.

Table5.Clusteringvariablesandproportionsofresponsetypesforeachitemcategorybyclusteringgroups

Clusterandsize

Itemtype

Responsetype Performance

True False Uninformative Otherstrategies

Cluster1 Clusteringvar. 59% 17% 16% 69%N18 Control 74% 07% 19% 01% Numeral 55% 03% 37% 06% Most 48% 49% 02% 01% AdHoc 49% 42% 1% 8% Cluster2 Clusteringvar. 24% 57% 11% 38%N32 Control 21% 66% 13% 0% Numeral 24% 54% 22% 0% Most 37% 51% 3% 9% AdHoc 31% 55% 2% 12% Cluster3 Clusteringvar. 16% 15% 59% 55%N6 Control 16% 6% 79% 0% Numeral 6% 19% 75% 0% Most 31% 19% 33% 17% AdHoc 21% 50% 12% 17% Cluster 1 is characterised by a high rate of true descriptions and a high expected success rate

(performance)ofthereceiver.Participantsinthisclusterwerethereforemostlyplayingthegameas

18

iftheirgoalwastohelpthereceiverasahighsuccessrateofthereceiverinthecompetitivecondition

corresponds to a low performance of the signaller, who caused the signaller tomake only a few

mistkes.Cluster2,themostnumerous,ischaracterisedbyahighrateoffalsedescriptionsandbythe

lowestexpectedperformanceofthethreeclusters.Participantsinthisclusterweremostlylyingor

falsely implicating and they expected their strategy to cause the receiver to performworse than

chance.Inotherwords,thosewhobelievedtoperformwellasdeceptivesenders(andbetterthan

chance)areexactlythosewhousedmisleadingimplicatures.Cluster3ischaracterisedbythehighest

rateofuninformativedescriptionsandanexpectedperformancenearchance.Althoughtherateof

uninformativedescriptionsthattheseparticipantsgaveformostandadhoc Items isstill relatively

highcomparedtotheotherclustersitislowerthanforControlitemsandNumeralsasparticipants

seemtorelymoreonotherstrategiesandontrueandfalseresponses.

Discussion

Ourparticipantsplayedasignallinggameinwhichtheywereeitherhelpingorcompetingagainsta

receiver.Theirtaskwastocompletedescriptionsthatcouldhelpthereceiverchoosethewiningcard

outofeachpairofcards.Someitemspushedsignallerstoconveythehintviaassertionandothersvia

implicature (numerals,most,andadhoc).Wecategorised thehintsusedbyparticipants into four

types.Truehints,thatcouldbeeithertrueassertionsortrueimplicatures,falsehints,uninformative

hints and other, where participants used ways of referring to one of the cards that we did not

anticipate.Theitemswereconstructedinsuchawaythatthedescriptionsweanticipatedwerethe

obviouscompletionsforthedescriptiontemplates,thereforewefounditinterestingthatparticipants

resortedtootherstrategiesforcompletingthedescriptions.

Inthecooperativeconditionparticipantsoverwhelminglychosetruecompletionsforthecontrolitems

and the items containing numerals, with very few uninformative or other descriptions. This was

expected given that their aimwas to help the receiver find thewinning card. Participants gave a

considerablenumberoffalsedescriptionsformostandadhocitemsinthecooperativecondition.This

isincontrasttothegoalofhelpingthereceiverandthemostlikelyexplanationforthehighrateof

19

false descriptions is that in some cases the potential implicatures of the descriptions were not

available to participants and they randomly chose between the two most obvious completions.

Furthermore,mostandespeciallyadhocitemselicitedaconsiderablerateofotherdescriptions.As

wepointedout,this is interestingasthesealternativestrategieswerenotobviouslyavailable.One

possible explanation is that participants anticipated the potential implicatures in these items and

preferredtochooseotherstrategiesforcommunicatingthekeyinformationinthedescriptionrather

thantrusttherelativelyunreliablechannelofimplicitcommunication(Reboul,2017).Analternative

explanation,whichisalsoconsistentwiththehighrateoffalsedescriptions,isthatthisbehaviouris

also causedby participants not seeing the potential implicatures of the twoobvious descriptions,

whichwithouttheimplicaturesaresimplyuninformativeforthereceiver.Andinordertoavoidgiving

an uninformative hint participants may have preferred resorting to other strategies. Previous

productionstudieshaveinvestigatedsituationswherespeakersneededtocommunicateinformation

through an inference rather thanby asserting it. They found that speakersoften, but not always,

expressthemselves inawaythatallowthehearertodrawan informative inference. Inastudyby

DaviesandKatsos(2010)participantsneededtorefertoobjectsinsituationswhereusingabarenoun

wouldbeunderinformative(e.g.'passmetheapple'inasituationwheretherearetwoapples)and

theiradultparticipantsusedexpressionsthatallowedthehearertodrawacontrastiveinference(e.g.

pass me the red apple) almost 80% of the time. In a study by Degen, Franke and Jäger (2013),

participantsplayedasignallinggamewheretheycouldonlysendmessagesthatdidnotconveythe

key information unambiguously. Among the four messages they could choose from, only one

conveyedthekeyinformationthroughaninferencewhiletheotherswereambiguousor incorrect.

Theyfoundthatparticipantssentthetargetmessageonroughly80%ofthetrialsiftheinferencewas

simple and on 50% of the trials if the inference was complex. Our results from the cooperative

conditionarethereforetowardsthelowendofthespectrumasourparticipantsexpressedthemselves

inawaythatwouldallowareceivertoinferatrueinferenceon59%fortrialsformostitemsand46%

20

oftrialsforadhocitems.Theserateswereprobablyaffectedbythecharacteristicsofouritemsand

thecomplexityofthetask.

Thecompetitiveconditiondifferedfromthecooperativeconditionmainly intheratesof falseand

uninformativedescriptions.Participantsinthisconditionweremorelikelytogivefalsehints(i.e.to

lie)incontrolitems:theygavefalseandtruedescriptionsatroughlythesamerate.Wealsofoundno

evidencethattheratiooffalsetotruedescriptionswasdifferentforanyoftheotheritemtypesinthe

competitivecondition.Itemscontainingnumerals,likecontrolitems,showedalargeincreaseinthe

rateof falsedescription in the competitive condition compared to the cooperative condition. The

relativeincreaseintherateoffalsedescriptionwassignificantlysmallerformostandadhocitemsas

theseitemselicitedaconsiderableamountoffalsedescriptionsinthecooperativeconditionaswell.

Participantswerealsomorelikelytoproduceuninformativedescriptionsforcontrolitemscompared

tothecooperativecondition.Itemscontainingnumeralsalsoelicitedmoreuninformativedescriptions

inthecompetitivecondition,infacttheyelicitedevenmorethancontrolitems.Formostandadhoc

itemstheuninformativedescriptionswereveryfewandsignificantlylessthanorcontrolitems.The

factthatcontrolitemselicitedahigherrateoffalseanduninformativedescriptionsinthecompetitive

condition suggests that ourmanipulation had an effect as participants were aiming to cause the

receivertomakemistakeseitherbylyingorbybeinguninformative.Thefactthatparticipantsrelied

eitheronuninformativehintsandonequalratiosoftrueandfalsehintssuggeststhattheydidnot

expect to be able to cause the receiver to do worse than chance. This is also consistent with

participants in thecompetitivecondition indicating that theyexpectedthereceiver toclickonthe

winningcardroughly50%ofthetime.Inasimilarnon-verbalsignallinggame,Ransom,Voorspoels,

Perfors and Navarro (2017) found that when the signaller expected a distrustful receiver, their

participantsgaveuninformativehintsroughly75%ofthetimeandonlyafewmisleadingorhelpful

hints.Althoughwecanassumethatourparticipantswerealsoexpectingadistrustful receiver,we

foundamuchlowerrateofuninformativehintsthanRansomandcolleagues.Thisismostlikelydue

tothefactthatwhileparticipantsintheirstudycouldnotlie,ourparticipantswereallowedtolieand

21

thereforetheycouldtakeadvantageofthefactthatreceiverswouldnotknowif informativehints

weretrueorfalse.Twostudiesonimplicaturecomprehensioninnon-cooperativesettingfoundthat

participantstendedtoinferlessimplicaturesfromtheutterancesofacompetitivespeakercompared

to a cooperative speaker (Pryslopska, 2013; Dulcinati and Pouscoulous, 2017). Dulcinati and

Pouscoulous (2017) employed a competitive signalling game very similar to the one used in the

presentexperimentwhereparticipantsplayroleofreceiverandknewthatthesignallerwasallowed

to lie. They found that both assertions and implicatures communicated by the signaller were

interpretedasfalsehalfofthetimeandtruehalfofthetime.Therefore,theexpectationsoftheir

participantsseemtomatchthebehaviourofthesignallersinourstudy,whousedtrueandfalsehints

inroughlyequalmeasurebothinassertionsandimplicatures.

Oneinterestingaspectofthewaythethreetypesofexperimentalitemswereusedbyparticipantsis

thefactthatitemscontainingnumeralspatternedwithcontrolitemsratherthanwiththeothertwo

categoriesofimplicatureitems:adhocandmost.Wefoundnoevidencethatnumeralswereusedany

differentlythancontrolitemsintermsofpreferenceforfalsedescriptionsovertruedescriptionsorin

termsoftherateofotherdescriptionsineitherofthetwoconditions.Incontrasttomostandadhoc

items,itemscontainingnumeralsdidnotelicitmorefalsehintsthancontrolitemsinthecooperative

condition;whichsuggeststhatiftheexactinterpretationofnumeralsisaninferenceinourstudyit

wasasavailableasthesemanticmeaningofthequantifiersallandnone.Anotherdifferenceform

mostandadhocitemsisthatitemswithnumeralsdidnotelicitmoreotherresponsesthancontrol

itemsinthecompetitivecondition;whichmaybedueeithertotheavailabilityofotherstrategiesfor

numeral itemsor due to themotivation to seek alternative strategies for these items. Itemswith

numeralsdiddifferfromcontrolitemsinelicitingmorefalsedescriptionsinthecompetitivecondition.

However,thisdifferencewasintheoppositedirectionasmostandadhocitems,whichelicitedless

uninformative descriptions compared to control items in the competitive condition. Overall, we

interpretthispatternofresultsto indicatethatparticipantsusednumeral items inawaythatwas

closertothecontrolitemsthantotheimplicatureitems.Wefurthertakeittosuggestthattheexact

22

interpretationofnumeralsispartoftheirtruth-conditionalmeaningmeaning(Carston,1998;Breheny

2008)andnotanimplicature(Horn,1972;Gazdar,1979;Levinson,2000).

Aswementioned,mostandadhocitemswereuseddifferentlythancontrolandnumeralitems.They

elicitedahighernumberoffalsedescriptionsthancontrolsinthecooperativecondition,whichmay

beduetoaloweravailabilityoftheirupperboundinterpretation.Theseitemswerealsolesslikelyto

elicituninformativedescriptionscomparedtocontrol items inthecompetitivecondition.Thismay

also be attributed to a lower availability of the upper bound interpretation, as the lower bound

interpretationofmost andadhoc description resulted in a description thatwas as unhelpful and

indeedequivalenttoanuninformative. Inourview,thesedifferencescanbeattributedtothefact

thatthekeyinformationwasconveyedthroughassertionincontrolandnumeralitems,andthrough

animplicatureinmostandadhocitems.Thesimilarityinthewayparticipantsusedmostandadhoc

itemsinsteadsuggeststhattherewasnodifferenceinthewayparticipantscomputedthesetwotypes

of implicatures.Our interpretation is therefore in supportof theviewthat scalar implicaturesand

particularisedimplicaturesarecomputedinthesameway(Sperber&Wilson,1995;Carston,2002;

Breheny,Katsos&Williams,2006;Geurts,2010),and is incontrastwiththe ideathat implicatures

arising from lexicalisedscalesaredefaultmeaningscomputeddifferently from implicaturesarising

fromadhocscales(e.g.Levinson,2000;Chierchia,2004).

Although in the competitive condition the ratesof trueand false responsesareoverall equal,our

clusteranalysissuggeststhatthisisactuallytheresultofdifferentopposingstrategiesthatparticipants

tendedtowards.Onetendencywasforparticipantstogivemoretruehints,at least incontroland

numeral items, and expect the receiver to have a better performance as a result. The simplest

explanationforwhysomeparticipantschosethisstrategy,whichisincontrastwiththeirgoalinthe

competitivecondition,isthattheywerenotfollowingtheinstructionsinthisrespect.Incontrast,the

largestgroupofparticipantstendedtogivemorefalsedescriptionsandtheyexpectedthereceiverto

performworsethanchanceasaresult.Theseparticipantsgaveahigherrateoffalsedescriptionsfor

controlitemsaswellasforexperimentalitems,suggestingthattheywereexpectingthereceiverto

23

drawimplicaturesfromtheirutterances.Althoughthisisonlyanumericalobservationastherewere

notenoughdatatoperformmeaningfulstatisticaltestsonthissubgroupofparticipants,itwouldbe

interestingtoinvestigatethispreferencefurther.Ifparticipantsdidexpecttheirreceivertodrawfalse

implicaturestheymusthaveexpectedthereceivertoseethemnotasoptingoutbutascooperative

enough(inaGriceansense)tobecommunicatingimplicatures.Athirdsmallergroupofparticipants

tendedtogivemoreuninformativedescriptions.Aninterestingfeatureofthisstrategyisthatbygiving

anuninformativehintparticipantsmadetheunhelpfulnessoftheirdescriptionsmanifesttotheother

player.InGriceanterms,whilegivingfalseresponsesmightbeacaseofacovertviolationofthemaxim

ofquality,givinguninformativeresponsessignalsthatthespeaker isoptingoutofthecooperative

principle.Ononehand,thisstrategymightbeacalculatedwayofforcingthereceivertochooseat

random.Ontheotherhand,someparticipantsmightprefertobeseenasoptingoutbecausethey

haveanaversiontolying.Infact,multiplestudieshavefoundthatpeoplehaveanaversiontolying

even in economic games where they would benefit from deceiving their interlocutor (Lundquist,

Ellingsen,Gribbe&Johannesson,2009;Gneezy,Rockenbach&Serra-Garcia,2013).Inotherwords,

ourparticipantsmayhavegivenuninformativehintsinordertobehonestaboutthefactthatthey

werebeingunhelpful.

Inconclusion,wefoundthatuncooperativespeakerstendtobemoreuninformativeandtoliemore

thaniftheirgoalwastohelptheirinterlocutor,atleastinthekindofcompetitivesituationwesetup

inourstudy.Knowingthattheirinterlocutorcouldbecompletelydistrustfulseemstopushspeakers

towardsthestrategyoftellingasmanytruthsas lies,whichseemstomatchtheexpectationsthat

hearers have (Dulcinati & Pouscoulous, 2017). However, we found that our participants are not

uniform in their strategyanda largegroupofourparticipantsusedahigher rateof liesand false

implicatures,whichsuggeststhattheyexpectedtheir interlocutorstodrawimplicaturesfromtheir

utterances.Wehopethatfurtherresearchwillfindclearerindicationsastowhetherspeakersexpect

theirinterlocutorstoinferimplicaturesinuncooperativesituations.Ourresultsalsosuggestthatthe

exact interpretation of numeral expressions is part of their truth conditional meaning and that

24

particularised implicaturesand the implicaturesof scalar expressionsareusedand computed in a

similarway.Furtherexperimentalresearchontheuseofimplicaturesinnon-cooperativesituationsis

needed aswe believe that this could provide information on factors that influence the speakers’

decisiononwhethertocommunicatesomethingimplicitlyorexplicitlyaswellasaboutthenatureof

theimplicaturethemselvesandtheroleofcooperationintheirderivation.

25

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AppendixANum_01 Num_02 Num_03 Num_04

Num_05 Num_06 Most_07 Most_08

Most_09 Most_10 Most_11 Most_12

Adhoc_13 Adhoc_14 Adhoc_15 Adhoc_16

Adhoc_17 Adhoc_18 None_19 None_20

None_21 None_22 None_23 None_24

None_25 None_26 None_27 All_28

All_29 All_30 All_31 All_32

All_33 All_34 All_35 All_36

29

Item Description:“Onthewinningcard…”

True False ItemType Description:“Onthewinningcard…”

True False

Num_01 twooftheobjectsare blue Mugs None_19 noneoftheobjectsare green pink

Num_02 twooftheobjectsare socks Pink None_20 noneoftheobjectsare cakes teapots

Num_03 twooftheobjectsare yellow saws None_21 noneoftheobjectsare pink yellow

Num_04 threeoftheobjectsare Boats green None_22 noneoftheobjectsare kettles bananas

Num_05 threeoftheobjectsare Buckets yellow None_23 noneoftheobjectsare Blue pink

Num_06 threeoftheobjectsare Pink candles None_24 noneoftheobjectsare Pans jars

Most_07 mostoftheobjectsare Pink keys None_25 noneoftheobjectsare Blue green

Most_08 mostoftheobjectsare lamps yellow None_26 noneoftheobjectsare cars sofas

Most_09 mostoftheobjectsare yellow flags None_27 noneoftheobjectsare Blue yellow

Most_10 mostoftheobjectsare beds blue All_28 alloftheobjectsare umbrellas Rockets

Most_11 mostoftheobjectsare pink books All_29 alloftheobjectsare green Yellow

Most_12 mostoftheobjectsare flowers blue All_30 alloftheobjectsare Shoes trophies

Adhoc_13 theobjectsinthetoproware blue kites All_31 alloftheobjectsare Pink green

Adhoc_14 theobjectsinthemiddleroware crowns blue All_32 Alloftheobjectsare Drums tents

Adhoc_15 theobjectsinthebottomroware yellow forks All_33 alloftheobjectsare yellow Pink

Adhoc_16 theobjectsinthetoproware vases pink All_34 alloftheobjectsare Trumpets Carrots

Adhoc_17 theobjectsinthemiddleroware green apples All_35 alloftheobjectsare blue Pink

Adhoc_18 theobjectsinthebottomroware pink bells All_36 alloftheobjectsare bottles Bikes

AppendixBInstructionsforthe[cooperative/competitive]condition:HOWTHEGAMEWORKS(pleasereadcarefully)Thisisa[cooperative/competitive]gamewithtwoplayers:adescriberandaguesser.Inthisgameyouarethedescriber.(theguesserwillplayinasecondphase)Ineachroundofthegameyou'llseeawinningcard(withagreenborder)andalosingcard(witharedborder)andyou'llhavetocompleteadescriptionofthewinningcard.Theguesserwillreadyourdescriptionandthey'llseebothcardsbuttheywon'tknowwhichoneisthewinningcard.[Inthisgamebothyouandtheguesserscorepointswhentheguesserclicksonwinningcards./Inthisgame both you and the guesser score pointswhen the guesser scores pointswhen they click onwinningcardswhereasyouscorepointswhentheguesserclicksonlosingcards.]Theguesserknowsthatthisisacompetitivegamebuttheydon'tknowthatyouarecompletingthedescriptionsinsteadofwritingthemfreely.PleasecompletetheinstructionwithONLYONEWORD.Youcantalkaboutacolouroratypeofobject.You canwrite false descriptions [and/but] remember that you are [helping / playing against] theguessersoyourgoalistomakethem[win/lose].Controlquestions[andanswers]forbothconditions:Beforeyouplay,let'scheckthatyouknowtherules:(Youwon'tbeabletoplayifyougetthesewrong)Thewinningcardis... [Theredone/Thegreenone]Yourdescriptionscanbe...[Onlytrue/Eithertrueorfalse]Inthisgameyouare... [Helpingtheguesserclickonwinningcards/Playingagainsttheguesser]Youcanwrite...[Maximum1word/Maximum3words]