Publications

Word Order and Adjacency in the Processing of Nested Epistemic Expressions

PsyArXiv Preprints, 2023

Two theoretical approaches provide different account for the cognitive mechanisms that underlie the semantic processing of nested epistemic expressions. We examined these two accounts in three experiments that elicited participants’ interpretation of nested epistemic expressions, focusing on whether or not the order and the adjacency of the component modals affected how the nested expressions are interpreted.

Recommended citation: Qiu, Z., Ferreira, F., & Morgan, E. (2023, September 1). Word Order and Adjacency in the Processing of Nested Epistemic Expressions. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/rbe3f http://PON2020.github.io/files/2023nestedmodals.pdf

Does ChatGPT Resemble Humans in Processing Implicatures?

Proceedings of the 4th Natural Logic Meets Machine Learning Workshop (NALOMA 23), 2023

In this study, we assessed ChatGPT’s pragmatic capabilities by conducting three preregistered experiments focused on its ability to compute pragmatic implicatures.

Recommended citation: Qiu, Z., Duan, X., and Cai, Z. (2023). Does ChatGPT Resemble Humans in Processing Implicatures? Proceedings of the 4th Natural Logic Meets Machine Learning Workshop (NALOMA 23). Association for Computational Linguistics . https://aclanthology.org/2023.naloma-1.3/

Task Variation in Scalar Implicature Computation

Proceedings of the 45th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 2023

The estimated rate of scalar implicature computation varied noticeably across different experimental paradigms. This suggests that the experimental paradigm itself has a significant impact on psycholinguistic theories of conversational implicature.

Recommended citation: Qiu, Z., Felton, C. D, Houghton, Z. N, & Jasbi, M. (2023). Task Variation in Scalar Implicature Computation Proceedings of the 45th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society 3751. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9pm7b4bj#main

Under Review: Pragmatic Implicature Processing in ChatGPT

PsyArXiv Preprints, 2023

The manuscript has been submitted to the British Journal of Psychology, and is currently under review.

Recent large language models (LLMs) and LLM-driven chatbots, such as ChatGPT, have sparked debate regarding whether these artificial systems can develop human-like cognitive capacities. We examined this issue by investigating whether ChatGPT resembles humans in its ability to enrich literal meanings of utterances with pragmatic implicatures.

Recommended citation: Qiu, Z., Duan, X., & Cai, Z. G. (2023). Pragmatic Implicature Processing in ChatGPT PsyArXiv. https://psyarxiv.com/qtbh9/

“He May Certainly Have Forgotten” : Processing of Nested Epistemic Expressions

Discourse Processes, 2022

This article presents a series of three experiments investigating the cognitive mechanisms of processing nested epistemic expressions, utterances containing two epistemic modals in one clause, such as “he certainly may have forgotten”.

Recommended citation: Qiu, Z and Ferreira, F. (2022). "He May Certainly Have Forgotten": Processing of Nested Epistemic Expressions Discourse Processes . 59:8, 591-618. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0163853X.2022.2077064

Predicting Syntactic Structure

Brain Research, 2021

This review focuses on language users’ ability to predict syntactic categories, a topic that has been somewhat neglected relative to semantic prediction–the ability to anticipate the next word or series of words based on semantic constraints.

Recommended citation: Ferreira, F., and Qiu, Z. (2021). Predicting syntactic structure Brain Research . 1770, 147632. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2021.147632

Guo1 and Guo2 in Chinese Temporal System

Proceedings of the 28th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation, 2014

This paper delves into the intricate nuances of meaning exhibited by the Chinese particles “guo1” and “guo2” along with their distinct roles within the Chinese temporal system.

Recommended citation: Qiu, Z., and Su, Q. (2014). "Guo1" and "Guo2" in Chinese temporal system Proceedings of the 28th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation, PACLIC 2014 . 568-574. https://aclanthology.org/Y14-1065.pdf