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Eye-tracking evidence for the causal-historical theory of reference

Domaneschi, Filippo ; D’Agruma, Nicolò ; Vignolo, Massimiliano and Ronderos, Camilo R. LU orcid (2025) In Linguistics and Philosophy 48(3). p.573-602
Abstract

In this paper, we present an experiment that shows conflicting findings from truth-value judgments and eye-tracking data for testing reference assignment of proper names. We argue that if eye-tracking is a more reliable method than truth-value judgment tasks, then our eye-tracking data provide stronger empirical support for Kripke’s causal-historical theory of reference for proper names. We also argue that eye-tracking and truth-value judgments cannot both be reliable techniques for resolving the debate. If they were, they should yield convergent results. Instead, we find that the truth-value judgment data align with the descriptivist prediction, while the eye-tracking results conform to the Kripkean pattern.

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author
; ; and
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
keywords
Causal theory of reference, Descriptivist theory of reference, Experimental semantics, Eye-tracking, Proper names
in
Linguistics and Philosophy
volume
48
issue
3
pages
30 pages
publisher
Springer
external identifiers
  • scopus:105010613593
ISSN
0165-0157
DOI
10.1007/s10988-024-09427-3
language
English
LU publication?
no
additional info
Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2025.
id
e3e06542-c764-431c-ba68-2a9ec187923b
date added to LUP
2025-08-06 12:39:47
date last changed
2025-08-13 15:32:42
@article{e3e06542-c764-431c-ba68-2a9ec187923b,
  abstract     = {{<p>In this paper, we present an experiment that shows conflicting findings from truth-value judgments and eye-tracking data for testing reference assignment of proper names. We argue that if eye-tracking is a more reliable method than truth-value judgment tasks, then our eye-tracking data provide stronger empirical support for Kripke’s causal-historical theory of reference for proper names. We also argue that eye-tracking and truth-value judgments cannot both be reliable techniques for resolving the debate. If they were, they should yield convergent results. Instead, we find that the truth-value judgment data align with the descriptivist prediction, while the eye-tracking results conform to the Kripkean pattern.</p>}},
  author       = {{Domaneschi, Filippo and D’Agruma, Nicolò and Vignolo, Massimiliano and Ronderos, Camilo R.}},
  issn         = {{0165-0157}},
  keywords     = {{Causal theory of reference; Descriptivist theory of reference; Experimental semantics; Eye-tracking; Proper names}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{3}},
  pages        = {{573--602}},
  publisher    = {{Springer}},
  series       = {{Linguistics and Philosophy}},
  title        = {{Eye-tracking evidence for the causal-historical theory of reference}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10988-024-09427-3}},
  doi          = {{10.1007/s10988-024-09427-3}},
  volume       = {{48}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}