{"pk":49742,"title":"Dense Sentence Sets Induce an Anchor-and-Baseline Strategy in Likert Scale Acceptability Judgments","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Research in experimental syntax typically assumes that the five-point Likert scale offers an ordinal probe that maps monotonically onto a latent degree of sentence acceptability. We challenge that assumption by showing that, when the stimulus space is densely populated, speakers repurpose the scale into an anchor-and-baseline device. Two large-N experiments (Russian and Serbo-Croatian; N=237; 120 permutational word-order variants per language) elicited over 28000 sentence acceptability ratings. Plotting Shannon entropy of the response distribution against the mean rating reveals a robust 'entropy arch': uncertainty climbs to a sharp peak at the midpoint and collapses toward both ends. We interpret the arch as the quantitative fingerprint of constraint competition: the scale extremes serve as categorical anchors ('completely acceptable' vs. 'completely unacceptable'), while the center functions as a floating baseline against which speakers register maximally uncertain, cue-balanced configurations for which grammatical, information-structural and frequency-based cues pull in opposite directions. Our findings reframe Likert data as the outcome of dynamic calibration rather than static preference strength and provide a simple diagnostic, entropy profiling, for locating linguistic 'tipping-point' constructions. Beyond sentence acceptability, the approach offers a principled way to map regions of maximal competition in any domain where categorical anchors and graded uncertainty coexist.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"Linguistics; Language Comprehension; Syntax"}],"section":"Papers with Poster Presentation","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7fr9r71f","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Artem","middle_name":"","last_name":"Novozhilov","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Nova Gorica","department":""},{"first_name":"Kirill","middle_name":"","last_name":"Chuprinko","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Nova Gorica","department":""},{"first_name":"Artur","middle_name":"","last_name":"Stepanov","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Nova Gorica","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2025-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/49742/galley/37704/download/"}]}