Relative adjectives like large exhibit the hallmark of vagueness: they give rise to borderline cases. For example, it is felicitous to say The apartment is neither small nor large, especially in a situation where the size of the apartment does not clearly exceed the standard of comparison for apartments in a given context of evaluation. Absolute adjectives like dirty, on the other hand, do not typically give rise to borderline cases (but see Burnett 2014; Solt 2015 for counter examples). This is tightly linked to the entailment patterns of the different types of adjectives (see especially Kennedy 2007).

The negation of an absolute adjective entails its antonym (Cruse 1986; Rotstein & Winter 2004; Kennedy 2007), as in (5), repeating (3)–(4) from above. This is because “a minimal positive degree corresponds to a maximal negative degree” on the relevant measurement scale (Kennedy 2007: 27). The same does not hold for relative adjectives, which do not give rise to such an antonymy entailment relation, as shown in (6), (Kennedy 2007). Antonymic pairs of relative adjective terms, such as large and small, share the same dimension and degrees, imposing inverse ordering relations, and allow for a middle ground between their extensions (extension gap). This semantic extension gap arises as the relevant standards (standard of largeness and standard of smallness) may be different (Kennedy 2007). Thus, a negated relative adjective, e.g., not large, implicates any degree (interval) below the associated standard (of largeness), be it in the extension gap or in the extension of the antonym (small). Hence, not large may implicate but not entail its antonym small.

Furthermore, as shown in (7), the entailment to the antonym does not hold for modified absolute adjectives (see (7a)) or stronger scale-mates (see (7b)) either; an observation that, to our knowledge, has not been clearly made so far. The sentences in (7) are in fact compatible with several different possibilities (the apartment being clean, dirty or filthy), possibly recreating a middle ground between positive and negative antonyms as in the case of relative adjectives.

Relatedly, Rotstein & Winter (2004) note that, in some contexts, modified absolute terms by almost/slightly break the complementarity of antonymic absolute terms (e.g., dirty vs. clean) manifested by their entailment patterns in (5). This is because, in some contexts, such expressions (like almost dirty according to Rotstein & Winter 2004) can be used to describe a middling situation like being ‘neither clean nor dirty’. One such context is when attention is drawn to the presence of a small amount of dirt, as in (8), and different adjective expressions are under consideration, creating a competition between forms and subtle distinctions in meaning.

A well-known case where competition between forms leads to distinctions in meaning is the so-called “division of pragmatic labor” featuring in Horn’s Neo-Gricean pragmatic theory (Horn 1989). In the following, we present Horn’s theory, which comprehensively discusses and accounts for the interpretation of negated adjectives.

Horn proposes two opposed conversational principles that interlocutors observe during communication: The Q Principle (Q for Quantity): Say as much as you can (modulo Quality and R) and the R Principle (R for Relation): Say no more than you must (modulo Q). Exploiting the Q Principle, the listener infers that anything beyond what is being said does not hold (upper-bounding implicature). Conversely, by exploiting the R Principle, the listener infers that what has been said is the least that holds (lower-bounding implicature, also known as strengthening). These two opposed pragmatic principles may interact dividing up the pragmatic labor, which has been established as “the division of pragmatic labor” (e.g., Horn 1993a):

Let us now consider how Horn’s theory can be applied to adjective interpretation. The Q principle is employed to capture upper-bounding inferences of expressions that differ in informational strength (also referred to as scalar implicatures) such as the adjectives large and gigantic, whereby the latter asymmetrically entails and is informationally stronger than the former (see also footnote 1). As (9) illustrates, for example, the apartment is large can Q-implicate that the apartment is large but not gigantic, hence, imposing an upper bound on the interpretation of large.

Horn’s framework further captures inferences triggered by negated adjectives: e.g., the negative strengthening interpretation in (10) as well as the so-called middling interpretations that double negatives tend to trigger under negation, see (11).

More specifically, Horn (1989) derives negative strengthening (in (10)) as an R-based implicature: According to the hearer’s reasoning, the speaker chooses the more complex yet still less informative expression not large to conceal the stronger negative meaning expressed by the simple antonym small. Namely, given the R principle, the hearer reasons that what has been said (not large) is the least that holds true (lower bound on the interpretation of not large). The hearer in (10) thus strengthens the literal interpretation ‘less than large’ (that includes both medium-size and small degrees) to ‘small’. In turn, middling interpretations of double negatives, such as not small in (11), are derived via reasoning about an interplay between Horn’s Q and R principles:

In other words, the hearer in (11) reasons that the speaker utters a prolix expression such as a double negative (not small) because the corresponding brief and more informative simple antonym (large) is not precisely applicable. The hearer concludes that a weaker situation must hold instead, one that corresponds to the range of degrees in the extension gap between the two antonymic adjectives, arriving, thus, at the interpretation ‘neither large nor small’.

Using a variety of experimental paradigms and tasks, previous experimental studies have attested an asymmetric interpretation for positive and negative relative adjectives in the scope of negation (see, e.g., Colston 1999; Fraenkel & Schul 2008; Ruytenbeek et al. 2017; Gotzner & Mazzarella 2021), such that positive adjectives (not large) are more likely to trigger negative strengthening (‘rather small’) than negative adjectives (not small) in the scope of negation.

As already mentioned, such a polarity asymmetry in adjective interpretation is not expected to arise for absolute adjectives in the scope of negation. Under standard semantic accounts of absolute adjectives (see, e.g., Kennedy 2007), negated absolute adjectives entail their simple antonym (not clean ⟹ ‘dirty’, not dirty ⟹ ‘clean’; see also Section 2.1), hence, no extension gap between antonymic absolute adjectives, resulting in a symmetric interpretation pattern for negated positive (not clean) and negative terms (not dirty). However, Paradis & Willners (2006) report asymmetric interpretation patterns for negated positive and negative absolute adjectives, and importantly interpretations different and weaker than that of the corresponding simple antonym, namely relative-like interpretations (e.g., not empty ⇏ ‘full’ and not full ⇏ ‘empty’; see also Fraenkel & Schul 2008 and Albu 2020). In this study, Paradis & Willners tested a larger set of antonymic adjective pairs, which besides absolute adjectives included also non-gradable adjectives such as dead vs. alive. This set of adjectives was subsumed by the category of contradictory antonyms, where one term must be true and the other one false of a given individual (e.g., one must be either dead or alive). Since this set of adjectives was rather heterogeneous, the type of adjective, namely, relative vs. absolute, has not been systematically controlled for in this study.

Alexandropoulou & Gotzner (accepted) set out to systematically investigate the interpretation of gradable adjectives in the scope of negation while incorporating the well-known semantic differences between absolute and relative adjectives. This study tested the competing predictions of Horn’s (1989) and Krifka’s (2007) accounts regarding the interpretation of negated relative and absolute adjectives in the scope of negation. Alexandropoulou & Gotzner (accepted) conducted one experiment on absolute adjectives and one on relative adjectives using a reward task (building on a study by Gotzner & Kiziltan (2022)). In this task, participants assigned ratings from a 5-point rating scale to co-occurring adjective predication statements differing in the presence or absence of negation, the informational strength (weak vs. strong) and the evaluative polarity of the adjectival predicate (positive vs. negative; see an example for each adjective type in Tables 1 and 2, respectively).

Alexandropoulou & Gotzner (accepted) found that informationally weak relative adjectives are interpreted asymmetrically with respect to evaluative polarity in the scope of negation (not large vs. not small): positive adjectives were partly interpreted similarly to their simple antonyms (not large ≈ small), which was not the case for negative adjectives (not small). The corresponding informationally strong antonymic terms (not gigantic and not tiny) exhibited a similar interpretation pattern to that of informationally weak negatives (not small; see Section 1.2 in Appendix for statistical analysis). Positive (not clean) and negative absolute adjectives (not dirty), on the other hand, presented symmetric interpretation patterns under negation (see Section 1.2 in Appendix for statistical analysis), presumably in line with their entailment patterns (see Section 2.1), with weak and strong conditions largely overlapping. Interestingly, negated absolute adjective conditions also received ratings evincing that these conditions were not strictly interpreted in the same way as the corresponding simple antonyms (cf. ratings of 3 in negated conditions vs. non-negated simple antonyms in Figure 4, left panel). Alexandropoulou & Gotzner propose that this could point to the apparent availability of relative-like interpretations for negated absolute adjectives, as in the case of Paradis & Willners (2006).

Alexandropoulou & Gotzner’s (accepted) findings for weak antonymic relative and absolute adjectives confirm the predictions stemming from Horn’s (1989) account of negated predicates. According to this account, negated weak relative (not large vs. not small) and absolute adjectives (not clean vs. not dirty) present distinct interpretation patterns, with the former exhibiting a polarity asymmetry. Furthermore, it is concluded that the existence of a semantic extension gap for the involved predicates is an essential property of the interpretation mechanism of negated predicates.

In this previous study, Alexandropoulou & Gotzner (accepted) used a concurrent presentation mode (multiple-statement presentation mode) in their task allowing for a competition and direct comparison among all different adjective statements. Crucially, this may have encouraged participants to draw more fine-grained (meaning) distinctions between competing adjective expressions. This is reminiscent of Horn’s notion of competition as expressed by the division of pragmatic labor (i.e., that competition between a simple and a more complex form leads to distinctions in meaning).

The role of competition in meaning distinctions has also been tested experimentally via a manipulation of presentation mode in a study by Tessler & Franke (2019). Tessler & Franke (2019) showed that morphologically negative adjectives like unhappy are interpreted differently from the corresponding negated positive counterparts (not happy) in a multiple-statement presentation mode as opposed to a single-statement presentation mode, namely, when adjective statements are presented one at a time in a given context and there is no overt competition among different expressions. This essentially highlights the importance of overt contextual competition among alternative expressions in adjective interpretation, which may bring about meaning distinctions that are less likely to arise in the absence of such competition.

In light of Tessler & Franke’s (2019) findings and Horn’s notion of competition as expressed by the division of pragmatic labor, the current study sets out to investigate the influence of contextual competition among alternative adjective expressions on distinct interpretation patterns of antonymic relative and absolute adjectives under negation. We will explore to what extent overt contextual competition might have contributed to Alexandropoulou & Gotzner’s (accepted) attested distinct interpretation patterns of the two gradable adjective classes in the scope of negation. To that end, we ran experiments on relative (Experiment 1) and absolute gradable adjectives (Experiment 2) similar to those in Alexandropoulou & Gotzner accepted but with a single-statement presentation mode. Conducting these experiments will provide insight into: (i) whether the contextual competition between different adjective expressions can influence the distinct interpretation patterns of negated relative and absolute adjectives in general, and (ii) whether the apparent availability of relative-like interpretations of negated absolute adjectives, in particular, may hinge on contextual competition.

We have seen that overt competition between a simple and a more complex form may bring about meaning distinctions between the two forms (cf. also Tessler & Franke’s (2019) experimental findings). Drawing inspiration from Tessler & Franke (2019), the current study is concerned with the effect of contextual competition among alternative adjective expressions on adjective interpretation under negation. The specific research question we address is to what extent the absence of overt contextual competition affects the distinct interpretation patterns of negated antonymic relative and absolute adjectives differing in informational strength. The sub-questions we address in our study are the following: (i) Does the absence of overt contextual competition affect the symmetric and asymmetric interpretation patterns of antonymic absolute and relative adjectives under negation? We ask this question mainly for weak adjective terms, and also explore their interpretation in relation to strong adjective terms. (ii) Do apparent relative-like interpretations of negated absolute adjectives hinge on overt contextual competition?

We assume that overt competition is induced when multiple adjective statements are presented and interpreted concurrently (i.e., in a multiple-statement presentation mode), whereas no overt competition is available in a single-statement presentation mode, where one adjective statement is presented and judged upon at a time. Alexandropoulou & Gotzner’s (accepted) experiments on relative and absolute adjectives employed a multiple-statement presentation mode. They reported distinct interpretation patterns for antonymic relative and absolute adjectives in the scope of negation. In the present study, we carried out the corresponding experiments with a single-statement presentation mode, to find insights into whether the induced overt contextual competition might have contributed to the attested interpretation patterns. In the following, we tackle (i) and (ii) in turn: we first investigate whether the same distinct interpretation patterns obtain in the absence of overt competition, and next whether the seemingly relative-like interpretations of negated absolute adjectives vanish in the absence of overt competition. In both experiments, we primarily focus on weak adjectives. Regardless of competition, weak relative and absolute adjectives are predicted to have clearly distinct interpretations, unlike their strong counterparts. Such interpretation patterns were attested with overt competition between alternative expressions (Alexandropoulou & Gotzner accepted) and here we probe the extent to which they obtain even in the absence of overt competition. As regards strong adjective expressions, we will explore how those are interpreted in comparison to weak terms, bearing in mind that strong terms of relative and absolute adjective scales have similar interpretations. This is so, because antonymic pairs of strong relative (gigantic vs. tiny) and strong absolute adjectives (pristine vs. filthy) both represent contraries, namely, such antonymic terms might be false at the same time, but they cannot be true at the same time. We conducted Experiment 1 on relative adjectives and Experiment 2 on absolute adjectives.

In this section, we present the specifics of Experiments 1 and 2 together, as those were identical except for the type of adjectives tested (relative vs. absolute).

In this paper, we tackled the role of competition between alternative expressions in adjective interpretation, zooming in on the interpretation of adjectives under negation in relation to corresponding simple antonyms (e.g., not small vs. large). Such competition occupies a vital position in Horn’s (1989) and in Krifka’s (2007) accounts, where complex forms (e.g., not small) are assigned a different interpretation from the corresponding simple form (large) on the basis of complexity-based considerations. Specifically, we were concerned with the contextually overt competition among alternative adjective expressions and investigated to what extent the absence of such competition affects the distinct interpretation patterns of relative and absolute adjectives in the scope of negation.

We addressed two sub-questions: (i) Does the absence of overt contextual competition affect the symmetric and asymmetric interpretation patterns of antonymic absolute and relative adjectives differing in informational strength in the scope of negation? (ii) Do apparent relative-like interpretations of negated absolute adjectives hinge exclusively on overt contextual competition? We assumed that overt contextual competition is induced by a multiple-statement presentation mode, as conducted by Alexandropoulou & Gotzner (accepted), whereas the absence of an overt contextual competition is achieved via a single-statement presentation mode. To address our two sub-questions, we conducted two experiments with a single-statement presentation mode: one on relative and one on absolute adjectives.

Our analysis showed that the asymmetric interpretation patterns of antonymic weak relative adjectives (not large vs. not small) attested by Alexandropoulou & Gotzner (accepted) also obtain when there is no overt competition. A further exploratory analysis suggested that the relevant polarity asymmetry is stronger in the single-statement presentation mode than in the multiple-statement presentation mode, with positive relative terms (not large) being interpreted more similarly to the corresponding simple antonym (small) in the former than in the latter version while negated negative terms (not small) behaved consistently across versions. From this, we may conclude that contextual competition does affect the asymmetric interpretation of negated antonymic weak relative adjectives. In particular, when there is no overt contextual competition, positive relative terms (not large) tend to be negatively strengthened more and interpreted similarly to the corresponding simple antonym (small). Hence, distinctions between these two adjective forms are less likely to occur in the absence of overt contextual competition, as predicted. It was further shown that antonymic strong relative adjectives are not interpreted differently than antonymic weak relative adjectives, and this comparison was not modulated by Presentation mode.

Our analysis for absolute adjectives revealed no robust evidence of an asymmetric interpretation pattern of positive (not clean) and negative weak absolute adjectives (not dirty) in the scope of negation when there is no overt contextual competition. A further exploratory analysis suggested that the apparent symmetric response patterns of antonymic weak absolute adjectives were not affected differentially by Presentation mode, namely by the presence or absence of overt competition. This was also the case for the symmetric response patterns of negated strong positive (not pristine) and negative absolute terms (not filthy) in relation to their weak counterparts.

In all, in the absence of overt competition, weak antonymic relative adjectives are interpreted more asymmetrically in the scope of negation while the symmetric interpretation patterns of weak antonymic absolute adjectives remain unaffected. Now, let us critically evaluate the connection between our findings and the fundamental assumption that competition among equivalent expressions leads to more distinctions in meaning (complex forms receive a different interpretation from corresponding simple antonyms (Horn 1989; Krifka 2007)). Given this assumption, we can explain why in the absence of contextual competition participants choose an interpretation of negated positive relative adjectives similar to that of their simple antonyms, resulting in a stronger polarity asymmetry. In particular, such a setting possibly leaves more space for a reasoning that does not appeal to complexity-based considerations encouraged by the simultaneous presence of competing expressions. That is, a negative strengthening reasoning (implication to the antonym) as outlined in Horn’s (1989) account is more likely to emerge. On the other hand, it is suggested that the reasoning that distinguishes not small from the corresponding simple form large appears to be independent of the availability of the competing alternative expression in the particular communicative setting. A complexity-based reasoning may thus be initiated in this case regardless of the presence of competing alternative expressions in the specific communicative setting. We believe that such a reasoning is instead dependent on the existence of an extension gap between the semantic interpretations of antonymic relative adjectives – a core property of relative adjectives. This reasoning, along with the aforementioned negative strengthening one, will be further elucidated in the following section, drawing on Horn’s theory.

In order to tackle our second sub-question, relating to the apparent availability of relative-like interpretations of negated absolute adjectives, we performed an analysis for weak absolute adjectives only, with Antonym type being the only predictor (treatment-coded fixed effect). This analysis showed a reliable difference between negated absolute adjectives (not dirty/not clean) and corresponding simple antonyms (clean/dirty). Hence, relative-like interpretations of negated absolute adjectives seem to arise in the absence of overt contextual competition, too. Interestingly, an additional exploratory analysis with Presentation mode as a second treatment-coded fixed effect revealed no interaction of Presentation mode with either of the two comparisons (not dirty vs. clean, and not clean vs. dirty).

When considering all the results for absolute adjectives, the observed symmetric interpretation patterns align with standard semantic accounts (e.g., Kennedy 2007), regardless of the presentational/communicative context. However, fewer meaning distinctions between truth-conditionally equivalent expressions (e.g., not clean vs. dirty) might have been expected in the absence of overt competition. This anticipation is rooted in the aforesaid assumption that more complex forms (not clean) obtain a different interpretation from the competing truth-conditionally equivalent simple forms (dirty), resulting in relative-like interpretations for the former. This contrast should be less likely to arise in the absence of overt competition compared to when both competing expressions are present in a specific communicative setting. We strongly believe that there are a couple reasons why we do not find evidence that the apparent availability of relative-like interpretations is exclusively dependent on overt contextual competition as induced by the specific experimental set-up. First, it might be the case that the presence of strong antonymic adjectives (filthy, pristine) as indicated scale endpoints in the context of every item (across Presentation modes, see Table 2) might evoke different related adjective forms. This may create some competition between different forms, which may in turn encourage drawing finer distinctions in meaning, like those between not dirty and clean, and between not clean and dirty. Second, the use of a 5-point rating scale as a response scale in both Presentation modes may further encourage such distinctions (cf. Katsos & Bishop’s (2011) findings on graded rating scales bringing out meaning distinctions, unlike binary judgment tasks).8 In the next section, we claim that a complexity-based reasoning may be at play in the case of negated absolute adjectives similarly to negated negative relatives (not small). However, we will argue that this reasoning is prompted by overt or indirect contextual competition, makes reference to the level of precision, and crucially, does not presuppose the existence of an extension gap between the semantic interpretations of antonymic absolute adjectives, unlike in the case of negated relative adjectives.

The findings of the present study are relevant for the theoretical controversy over the interpretation of negated antonymic adjectives in the scope of negation. Specifically, this controversy is about whether the interpretation of antonymic negated adjectives is governed by sociological factors (as in Horn’s face-management-related theory) or by complexity-based considerations (as in Krifka’s (2007) account). These two competing views yield distinct interpretation patterns for negated antonymic adjectives: An account assuming face-management considerations derives an asymmetric interpretation pattern only for antonymic relative adjectives in the scope of negation, whereas an account adopting complexity-based considerations derives symmetric interpretation patterns for negated antonymic relative and absolute adjectives. The interpretation asymmetry between negated antonymic weak relative terms with respect to polarity (not large vs. not small), that persists in the absence of overt contextual competition, and the absence of such an interpretation pattern for negated antonymic weak absolute adjectives are in support of Horn’s (1989) as opposed to Krifka’s (2007) account.

The attested interpretation pattern of negated positive relative terms (not large) is evocative of the so-called negative strengthening interpretation captured by Horn as an R-based implicature conditioned on sociological considerations: e.g., participants may consider that not large conceals the stronger negative meaning expressed by the simple antonym small and that the former, as opposed to the latter, is presumably preserving the hearer’s face.9 In turn, no similar social pressure applies to negated negative adjectives (not small), hence this condition does not receive ratings similar to the corresponding simple antonym (large). Rather, the interpretation pattern of negated negative terms receiving a high proportion of middle-scale ratings seems to be indicative of the availability of middling interpretations (‘neither large nor small’), derived as a Q- and R-based implicature in Horn’s theory (see Section 2.1): participants reason that a given weak and prolix double negative term (not small) is used to express a weaker meaning than that expressed by the corresponding simple antonym (large), namely the meaning ‘neither small nor (quite) large’ corresponding to the degrees in the extension gap between large and small.

Negated absolute adjectives (not clean/not dirty) are interpreted symmetrically and showed no robust indications of the existence of an interpretation asymmetry like that observed for negated antonymic relative adjectives. However, they still allow for seemingly relative-like interpretations: negated weak absolute adjectives are interpreted differently from the corresponding simple antonyms. This is prima facie at odds with their entailment patterns (not dirty ⟹ ‘clean’, not clean ⟹ ‘dirty’) and standard semantic accounts of absolutes (e.g., Kennedy 2007) that do not assume the existence of a semantic extension gap between antonymic absolute adjectives. It would potentially be in line with Krifka’s complexity-based account predicting symmetric response patterns distinct from corresponding simple antonyms, which critically relies on the assumption that the pragmatic interpretation of antonymic adjectives leaves an extension gap in-between. Nevertheless, it is not necessary to subscribe to such an assumption, which would even call for a further explanation of why the two adjective classes under study present distinct interpretation patterns under negation while they both allow for an extension gap. Instead, we adopt an explanation for the apparent “gappy” behavior of negated absolute adjectives that alludes to Horn’s division of pragmatic labor (see Section 2.1). Importantly, this explanation avoids the need to invoke the existence of an extension gap and, thus, we do not have to abandon standard assumptions about the semantics of absolute adjectives.

We propose that the apparent “gappy” behavior of negated absolute adjectives may be the result of a reasoning that assumes some form of overt or covert competition between truth-conditionally equivalent forms appealing to distinctions due to the level of precision, which results in distinctions in meaning. As an illustration, when two truth-conditionally equivalent expressions like clean and not dirty become contextually salient and in competition, the simple adjective form clean may be taken to convey a stereotypical situation like that of being maximally clean (interpretation of clean at a high precision level, similar to pristine). In turn, the complex and marked form not dirty may then be assigned a non-stereotypical, weaker, meaning such as being neither really dirty nor (completely) clean (cf. Rotstein & Winter’s (2004) example (8) from section 2.1: It is certainly not clean, since it has some small spots on it, but it is not really dirty). Similarly, in the case of not clean vs. dirty, the simple form could be understood to convey a good amount of dirt (interpretation of dirty at a high precision level, similar to filthy), while the complex form might communicate a non-stereotypical situation such as presenting a minimal amount of dirt. This could perfectly account for why participants assign mid-scale ratings to both not dirty and not clean (vs. clean/dirty). It moreover accounts for the overlap of strong (pristine/filthy) and weak absolute conditions (clean/dirty) in the base environments without negation (cf. Figure 3). It is worth noting that one might assume that truth-conditionally equivalent expressions become salient and in competition across presentation modes. This assumption is based on the idea that some form of competition occurs indirectly in the single-statement presentation mode due to the presence of strong antonymic adjectives as indicated scale endpoints in the context of every item (see previous section).

A further methodological point relating to the setup of our experiments may be relevant in explaining the difference of negated absolute conditions (not clean/not dirty) from the corresponding simple antonyms (dirty/clean): Participants assign to the simple antonym conditions without negation (dirty and clean) the ratings 1 and 2, on the one hand, and 4 and 5, on the other. Having done so, they rate the negated weak (not clean/not dirty) and strong absolute adjectives (not pristine/not filthy) similarly making use of the ratings they had not assigned to the simple antonym (3, 4, and 5 for not dirty/not filthy, and 1, 2, 3 for not clean/not pristine). Thus, for the negated weak and strong conditions they may select any of the remaining scale points that have not been assigned to the respective simple antonym. This explanation suggests a chronological sequence of assigning ratings from simple, non-negated adjective expressions to complex, negated ones. Crucially, under this explanation too, the observed symmetric response patterns are in line with the entailment patterns of absolute adjectives and standard semantic accounts of absolute adjectives like Kennedy’s (2007). However, we believe that such strategic response behavior is less likely to occur in a single-statement, as opposed to a multiple-statement, presentation mode as participants cannot directly compare the responses they gave to different statements.