That’s interesting!🤔
We also found that the interpretation of modifiers depends on whether it modifies a positive or negative predicate. It would be interesting to study in more detail how context affects the interpretation of the modifier in different dialects.

And yes, all participants said that English is their primary language

Yes, I also think there would be a big difference with ESL speakers and native speakers, because context in which you encounter the word in everyday life seems to influence your understanding of the word significantly.

Thank you!

This work provides the first quantitative evidence that cross-cultural variation in interpretation emerges from an interplay of semantic and pragmatic factors.
With @rdhawkins.bsky.social, Matthias Hofer & Max Siegel
Poster presentation: July 31 at #CogSci2025
📄 Full paper: arxiv.org/abs/2506.15623

These findings have practical implications for cross-cultural communication. When cultural groups assign different meanings AND apply different pragmatic reasoning to the same words, misunderstandings may become more likely.

On the first point, our results are consistent with the observation that Americans typically interpret "quite" more as an amplifier (quite good = ⬆️ good), while British speakers often read it as a downtoner (quite good = 🤷 moderately good).

Our model comparisons showed that British and American speakers:
(1) Assign different literal meanings to some modifiers
(2) Apply different weights to informativity vs. social utility
(3) Reason differently about the "costs" of adding modifiers

Our results suggest both factors play an important role. We extended a Rational Speech Act model of polite speech to explicitly model cross-cultural variation.

We conducted three experiments examining how people interpret various modified statements like "I'm very concerned" across a range of scenarios. The series of experiments aimed to distinguish social factors (e.g. politeness) from semantic factors (e.g. modifying the strength of the statement).

The key question: Do cross-cultural differences stem from words having different literal meanings across cultures, or from different pragmatic reasoning about politeness and communication norms?

🎤 "Your #CogSci presentation was quite good this year."

How flattered or offended will you be? The answer may depend on whether you speak British or American English 🇺🇸🇬🇧. Our new #CogSci2025 paper reveals systematic differences in how different cultures interpret the same words.