We used two similar yet different stimuli questions: “Is anyone sitting here?” and “Is this seat taken?”. Both questions include implications that the speaker wants to sit. One of us would act as the experimenter while the other observed. Taking into account the Hawthorne effect, the observer would stay far enough away as to not manipulate the subject’s reaction. After a subject would reply, the experimenter would not act upon the assumption and walk away.
I was very hesitant to begin the experiment because of the awkward situation I knew it would create. Once I began, the uncomfortable feeling became humorous. This uncomfortable feeling stems from the unconscious underlying conversational structure that a violation disrupts. Because I was consciously aware of this underlying structure, I could see the humor in the situation rather than the