NEGATIVES: DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION

Abstract

The hypothesis was investigated that the connotations of the word ‘not’ affect the times taken to verify negative statements more than the function of this word as a logical constant. The task was to verify statements which asserted, or denied, that a given number was ‘even’. Two groups were used: an explicit group in which the statements were in English, and an implicit group in which neutral signs stood for assertion and denial, their functions being learned by discovering the conditions which made the statements true and false. The results showed that the difference between the response times to explicit affirmative and negative statements was significantly greater ( P < 0·001) after practice than the corresponding difference for implicit statements. The introspections suggested, however, that the subjects' approach to the implicit statements was an important variable. Tentative evidence for two factors affecting the response times to negative statements was adduced.