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      My pronouns are they/them: Talking about pronouns changes how pronouns are understood

      research-article
      , ,
      Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
      Springer US
      Pronouns, Gender identity, Nonbinary, Discourse

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          Abstract

          The pronoun “they” can be either plural or singular, perhaps referring to an individual who identifies as nonbinary. How do listeners identify whether “they” has a singular or plural sense? We test the role of explicitly discussing pronouns (e.g., “Alex uses they/them pronouns”). In three experiments, participants read short stories, like “Alex went running with Liz. They fell down.” Answers to “Who fell down” indicated whether participants interpreted they as Alex or Alex-and-Liz. We found more singular responses in discourse contexts that make Alex more available: when Alex was either the only person in the context or mentioned first. Critically, the singular interpretation was stronger when participants heard explicit instructions that Alex uses they/them pronouns, even though participants in all conditions had ample opportunity to learn this fact through observation. Results show that the social trend to talk about pronouns has a direct impact on how language is understood.

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          New and updated tests of print exposure and reading abilities in college students

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            Exposure to Print and Orthographic Processing

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              The rapid use of gender information: evidence of the time course of pronoun resolution from eyetracking.

              J. Arnold (2000)
              Eye movements of listeners were monitored to investigate how gender information and accessibility influence the initial processes of pronoun interpretation. Previous studies on this issue have produced mixed results, and several studies have concluded that gender cues are not automatically used during the early processes of pronoun interpretation (e.g. Garnham, A., Oakhill, J. & Cruttenden, H. (1992). The role of implicit causality and gender cue in the interpretation of pronouns. Language and Cognitive Processes, 73 (4), 231-255; Greene, S. B., McKoon, G. & Ratcliff, R. (1992). Pronoun resolution and discourse models. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 182, 266-283). In the two experiments presented here, participants viewed a picture with two familiar cartoon characters of either same or different gender. They listened to a text describing the picture, in which a pronoun referred to either the first, more accessible, character, or the second. (For example, Donald is bringing some mail to ¿Mickey/Minnie¿ while a violent storm is beginning. He's carrying an umbrellaellipsis.) The results of both experiments show rapid use of both gender and accessibility at approximately 200 ms after the pronoun offset.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                jarnold@email.unc.edu
                Journal
                Psychon Bull Rev
                Psychon Bull Rev
                Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
                Springer US (New York )
                1069-9384
                1531-5320
                4 May 2021
                : 1-10
                Affiliations
                GRID grid.10698.36, ISNI 0000000122483208, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, , University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, ; Davie 337B, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3170 USA
                Article
                1905
                10.3758/s13423-021-01905-0
                8094985
                33945124
                72944c3c-34c5-49e5-bebe-059233e5314b
                © The Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2021

                This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.

                History
                : 22 February 2021
                Categories
                Brief Report

                Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry
                pronouns,gender identity,nonbinary,discourse
                Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry
                pronouns, gender identity, nonbinary, discourse

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