Inferential processing and meta-knowledge as the bases for property inclusion in combined concepts

Past research has found that the judged likelihood of properties of modified nouns (baby ducks have webbed feet) is reduced relative to unmodified nouns (ducks have webbed feet). Experiments 1–3 replicate the modification effect and demonstrate that this effect is obtained when participants make dichotomous decisions about the truth of such statements. In addition, measures of processing time indicate that properties are not immediately inherited during the composition process, but rather must be inferred. Experiments 2–3 included statements containing content-free modifiers (chonk ducks have webbed feet) to examine the extent to which the modification effect is influenced by the content of the modifier and knowledge about the combined concepts. Taken together, these results argue in favor of an inferential process that operates at the level of logical forms or structures, which are content-free, as well as operating on the content of the head noun category. In this framework, properties are inferred after a structural interpretation has been derived.

► We examine the perceived likelihood of generic statements.
► Perceived likelihood is lower for modified nouns than for unmodified nouns.
► Generic statements using content-free modifiers also show a modification effect.
► Dichotomous judgments about whether a statement is true show a modification effect.
► Properties are inferred after a structural interpretation has been derived.