Interpreting physical and mental metaphors: Is Theory of Mind associated with pragmatics in middle childhood?

That kid is a grasshopper! Metaphor development from 3 to 9 years of age

Two major trends on children's skills to comprehend metaphors have governed the literature on the subject: the literal stage hypothesis vs. the early birds hypothesis (Falkum, 2022). We aim to contribute to this debate by testing children's capability to comprehend novel metaphors ('X is a Y') in Spanish with a child-friendly, picture selection task, while also tracking their gaze. Further, given recent findings on the development of metonymy comprehension suggesting a U-shaped developmental curve for this phenomenon (Köder & Falkum, 2020), we aimed to determine the shape of the developmental trajectory of novel metaphor comprehension, and to explore how both types of data (picture selection and gaze behavior) relate to each other. Our results suggest a linear developmental trajectory with 6-year-olds significantly succeeding in picture selection and consistently looking at the metaphorical target even after question onset.

A metaphorical advantage for bilingual children? Understanding figurative meaning by L2 and L3 EFL learners

This study compared school-aged monolingual and bilingual English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners in terms of understanding metaphors on recall, multiple-choice, and reasoning tasks. It also examined the relationship between cognitive capacity and understanding metaphors on different measures. A hundred and thirty Persian-Turkish early bilinguals and 122 monolingual Persian-speaking EFL learners took three different tests of metaphor comprehension and the Figural Intersections Test, a test of cognitive capacity. Bilinguals outperformed monolinguals in terms of cognitive capacity and understanding metaphors on two of the tasks, though with a small effect size. Furthermore, there was a significant positive relationship between cognitive capacity and the scores on the multiple-choice and reasoning tests, but not the recall test. Results suggest that bilingual L3 learners have an edge in understanding metaphors, reflecting a cognitive advantage.

Insights into Oral and Written Competencies in Neurodevelopmental Disorders

The study of language abilities offers privileged insights to access the multifaceted world of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD, henceforth), showing how particular aspects of language may be handled differently as a function of typical neuropsychological features of specific disorders [...].

Metaphor comprehension in the acquisition of Arabic

Metaphors are key to how children conceptualise the world around them and how they engage socially and educationally. This study investigated metaphor comprehension in typically developing Arabic-speaking children aged 3;01-6;07. Eighty-seven children were administered a newly developed task containing 20 narrated stories and were asked to point at pictures that best illustrated the metaphoric expression. The results were examined through a mixed ANCOVA, testing the effects of chronological age, metaphor type (primary, perceptual) and metaphor conventionality (conventional, novel) on metaphor comprehension. Children could understand some metaphors just after their third birthday, and their comprehension increased with age. Children's performance was somewhat better on primary than perceptual, and much better on conventional than novel metaphors. These findings are discussed in light of conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 2008) and structure mapping theory (Gentner & Markman, 1997), confirming differences in the acquisition of different metaphor types.

An empirical study on the development of metaphorical comprehension of Chinese children

Metaphor affects how people focus, remember, and process information and significantly influences children's language development. The study explored metaphorical comprehension by Chinese children of different ages (5-8 years). We collected response times and accuracy rates when they processed metaphorical and literal sentences with the graded salience. Linear mixed-effects modeling showed that Chinese children's metaphorical ability improved with age. Subsequent analysis found that the perception period of metaphorical knowledge was at age 5, the development stage of metaphorical knowledge was at age 6 and 7, and the rational decision period of metaphorical ability was at age 8. After 8-year-old, children can invoke the knowledge of the intention schema while activating the source domain, and this knowledge can be automatically and quickly mapped to the target domain. Meanwhile, language development and cognitive processing influenced the metaphorical comprehension of Chinese children, especially children of 8 years of age who had the highest correct rate and the shortest reaction time to process low-saliency metaphorical sentences, while 5-year-old children had the highest accuracy in high-saliency metaphorical sentence and 6-year-old children got the longest reaction time to process sentence in high-saliency metaphor. This study may provide evidence for improving and training metaphor comprehension in children with special needs such as those with an autism spectrum disorder.

Perspective-taking in deriving implicatures: The listener's perspective is important too

Theories of meaning propose that listeners understand a speaker's implicit meaning thanks to mutually assumed norms of conversation that take into account what the speaker has said, as well as contextual factors, including what the speaker knows. Emerging psycholinguistic research shows that listeners derive a particular kind of implicit meaning, quantity implicatures, when their speaker is knowledgeable about the situation but tend to not derive it otherwise. In this article we focus on if and how listeners use the knowledge that is available only to themselves, i.e., the listener's perspective, while deriving implicatures. To do so, we explore the derivation of ad hoc quantity implicature in situations where the speaker does or does not have full knowledge, while, in the latter case, the listener has two types of privileged knowledge. Two versions of a study with neurotypical English-speaking adults show that listeners are influenced by their own perspective while deriving implicatures, depending on the type of knowledge available to them. We discuss the implications of these findings for models of pragmatic interpretative strategies.

Linguistic Skills and Socioeconomic Status: Two Oft Forgotten Factors in Child Metaphor Comprehension

Metaphor understanding can be tricky for children until mid-childhood, yet some research suggests that pre-schoolers are already competent. Many factors have been proposed to play a role in the development of metaphor comprehension. In this study we focus on two obvious contenders that have been overlooked in recent years: general language skills and socioeconomic status (SES). Two-hundred and seventy-two children, aged from 2;11 to 11;04 (146 girls) were recruited from 21 British schools and nurseries. Their SES was established using a composite measure linked to school location, while general language skills were assessed using a standardised measure of vocabulary comprehension. Novel metaphor comprehension was tested with a simple reference assignment task. Our study confirms that children interpret novel metaphors confidently from the age of 4. Our findings indicate that novel metaphor understanding is associated with age and, importantly, that it is linked to vocabulary skills, as well as SES, but not gender. These two factors should therefore be considered in future research on metaphor development, as well as intervention and education.

More than one path to pragmatics? Insights from children's grasp of implicit, figurative and ironical meaning

Human communication requires impressive inferential abilities and mind-reading skills. To learn how to speak and become competent communicators children need both. The development of pragmatic abilities presents us with a puzzle. On the one hand, much evidence suggests pragmatics play a grounding role in early communication and language acquisition. On the other, preschoolers find linguistic pragmatic inferences such as implicatures, metaphor and irony difficult to grasp. Apperly and Butterfill (2009) maintain that there are two separate systems for belief reasoning: a simpler one and a more sophisticated one that develops later. Along this line of reasoning we might also expect there to be two separate kinds of pragmatic abilities: an early set using (among other things) the simpler Theory of Mind system, and a more sophisticated one appearing later in childhood and using full-blown Theory of Mind. I will argue there is no need to divide pragmatic abilities in such a way to bridge the gap between the pragmatic inferential skills found in toddlers and the difficulties observed in preschoolers. Evidence from the past two decades indicates that phenomena such as implicatures and metaphor (but not irony) can be understood earlier than previously established. Additionally, children's apparent struggle with specific pragmatic inferences might be better explained by factors independent from pragmatic competence, but which interact with it.

Exploring Pragmatic Deficits in Relation to Theory of Mind and Executive Functions: Evidence from Individuals with Right Hemisphere Stroke

Research investigating pragmatic deficits in individuals with right hemisphere damage focuses on identifying the potential mechanisms responsible for the nature of these impairments. Nonetheless, the presumed shared cognitive mechanisms that could account for these deficits have not yet been established through data-based evidence from lesion studies. This study aimed to examine the co-occurrence of pragmatic language deficits, Theory of Mind impairments, and executive functions while also exploring their associations with brain lesion sites. Twenty-five patients suffering from unilateral right hemisphere stroke and thirty-seven healthy participants were recruited for this study. The two groups were tested in pragmatics, Theory of Mind, and executive function tasks. Structural imaging data were also obtained for the identification of the lesion sites. The findings of this study suggest a potential convergence among the three aforementioned cognitive mechanisms. Moreover, we postulate a hypothesis for a neural circuitry for communication impairments observed in individuals with right hemisphere damage.

The relationship between metaphor skills and Theory of Mind in middle childhood: Task and developmental effects

Theoretical pragmatics in the post-Gricean tradition argued that metaphor requires understanding of how another person sees the world. Yet, it is unclear what role mindreading plays in developing metaphor skills. Here we examined the relationship between metaphor and Theory of Mind (ToM) in middle childhood by using two different tasks. In addition to the Physical and Mental Metaphors task (PMM), based on the verbal explanation of physical and mental metaphors, we revived the Referential Metaphors task for children (Noveck, Bianco, & Castry, 2001), where metaphorical and literal referents are presented in a narrative context. The sample included 169 8-, 9-, and 10-year-old children, assessed also for ToM (via the Strange Stories) and other linguistic and cognitive skills as control variables. In the PMM, ToM supported the understanding of mental (but not physical) metaphors in 9-year-olds only, whereas in the Referential Metaphors task ToM supported accuracy of understanding metaphors (but not literal items) in younger children as well. At age 10, ToM effects were negligible in both tasks. These findings suggest that ToM has a task-specific role in metaphor, linked to the characteristics of the items in the task at stake, being for instance greater for metaphors with mental (compared to physical) content and for non-literal (compared to literal) referents. The findings also suggest that the relationship between ToM and metaphor skills is developmental sensitive, as children start to capitalize on ToM earlier in development when the metaphor context is richer, and these effects fade with age. Theoretically, these data argue in favor of the relevance-theoretic account of metaphor, spelling out different ways in which ToM might support metaphor resolution across tasks, for instance by providing better access to the psychological lexicon (i.e., terms referring to mental states) and better context processing, serving as a springboard to achieve sophisticated pragmatic skills in middle childhood.

Comprehension of Spatial Demonstratives in Mandarin-speaking Children on the Autism Spectrum: The Roles of Theory of Mind and Executive Function

The present study aimed to examine whether Mandarin-speaking children on the autism spectrum showed differences in comprehending spatial demonstratives ("this" and "that", and "here" and "there"), as compared to typically developing (TD) children. Another aim of this study was to investigate the roles of theory of mind (ToM) and executive functions (EF) in the comprehension of spatial demonstratives. Twenty-seven autistic children (mean age 6.86) and 27 receptive-vocabulary-matched TD children (mean age 5.82) were recruited. Demonstrative comprehension was assessed based on participants' ability to place objects in certain locations according to experimenters' instructions which involved these demonstratives in three different conditions (same-, opposite-, and spectator-perspective conditions). Four false-belief tasks were administered to measure ToM, and the word-span task and the dimensional change card sort task were used to measure two subcomponents of EF - working memory and mental flexibility - respectively. Children on the autism spectrum were found to score below TD children in the comprehension of spatial demonstratives. In addition, the results showed that ToM and working memory were conducive to the correct interpretation of spatial demonstratives. The two cognitive abilities mutually influenced their respective roles in spatial demonstrative comprehension in the three different conditions. The findings suggest that the comprehension of spatial demonstratives comprehension is an area of need in Mandarin-speaking children on the autism spectrum, and it might be linked to their differences in cognitive abilities.

Metaphor production in the bilingual acquisition of English and Polish

Metaphor acquisition research has focused mostly on metaphor comprehension in monolingual children. Ours is the first study to examine metaphor production in young bilinguals. A quantitative method was employed whereby sixty-two children aged three to six, with English and Polish, were tested on their ability to produce primary (e.g., a long day) and perceptual resemblance metaphors (e.g., You're my sunshine) in response to elicitation tasks. A univariate ANOVA revealed that the main factors to affect the production of conventional metaphors in bilingual children are their chronological age and their verbal skills in both English and Polish. No significant effect was found for nonverbal IQ, metaphor type, or testing language. These results are discussed in the context of both Conceptual Metaphor Theory, which has been concerned with the study of primary (and other conceptual) metaphors, and Structure Mapping Theory, which has focused on the use of perceptual resemblance metaphors. Usage-Based Theory is brought in to explain lexical effects in metaphor production.

N400 differences between physical and mental metaphors: The role of Theories of Mind

Whether Theory of Mind (ToM) contributes to metaphor understanding has been largely investigated in language acquisition and decay. Yet we know very little about the role of ToM in real-time processing of metaphors in neurotypical adults. Here, we tested the relationship between ToM and metaphor through Event Related Potentials (ERPs) by capitalizing on the difference between metaphors inviting inferences on physical (Boxers are pandas) vs. mental aspects (Teachers are books). Physical metaphors involved a larger and sustained negativity compared to mental ones. This pattern resembled concreteness effects and suggests that physical metaphors may benefit from both verbal and perceptual information. Moreover, higher scores in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), but not in the Animation task, were associated with a reduction of the N400 amplitude for both physical and mental metaphors. When exploring the ERP temporal trajectory with Generalized Additive Mixed Modeling, earlier differences between metaphors characterized individuals with higher RMET scores. Among the various ToM components, thus, emotion recognition seems to be involved in the processing of metaphors in general, with an earlier impact on the mental type. These findings highlight the multifaceted nature of metaphor, at the crossroad of language, social and perceptual experience.

Differential Tracking of Linguistic vs. Mental State Content in Naturalistic Stimuli by Language and Theory of Mind (ToM) Brain Networks

Language and social cognition, especially the ability to reason about mental states, known as theory of mind (ToM), are deeply related in development and everyday use. However, whether these cognitive faculties rely on distinct, overlapping, or the same mechanisms remains debated. Some evidence suggests that, by adulthood, language and ToM draw on largely distinct-though plausibly interacting-cortical networks. However, the broad topography of these networks is similar, and some have emphasized the importance of social content / communicative intent in the linguistic signal for eliciting responses in the language areas. Here, we combine the power of individual-subject functional localization with the naturalistic-cognition inter-subject correlation approach to illuminate the language-ToM relationship. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we recorded neural activity as participants (n = 43) listened to stories and dialogues with mental state content (+linguistic, +ToM), viewed silent animations and live action films with mental state content but no language (-linguistic, +ToM), or listened to an expository text (+linguistic, -ToM). The ToM network robustly tracked stimuli rich in mental state information regardless of whether mental states were conveyed linguistically or non-linguistically, while tracking a +linguistic / -ToM stimulus only weakly. In contrast, the language network tracked linguistic stimuli more strongly than (a) non-linguistic stimuli, and than (b) the ToM network, and showed reliable tracking even for the linguistic condition devoid of mental state content. These findings suggest that in spite of their indisputably close links, language and ToM dissociate robustly in their neural substrates-and thus plausibly cognitive mechanisms-including during the processing of rich naturalistic materials.

Specific learning disorders in young adults: Investigating pragmatic abilities and their relationship with theory of mind, executive functions and quality of life

BACKGROUND

Specific Learning Disorders (SLD) are lifelong conditions often associated with language difficulties, executive dysfunctions, and psychological problems. Previous research has shown that communicative-pragmatic ability may be impaired in SLD. However, the role of other cognitive abilities in explaining pragmatic difficulties has still not been fully investigated. The relationship between pragmatics and quality of life is not yet clear, as well.

AIMS

Firstly, the study assessed pragmatic comprehension abilities in adults with SLD. Secondly, we examined the relationship between pragmatics, theory of mind, executive functions and quality of life.

METHOD AND PROCEDURES

We enrolled 26 adults with SLD and 30 adults without SLD. Standardized tests assessing pragmatic comprehension, theory of mind and executive functions were used. The quality of life was investigated with a self-reported questionnaire.

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

Pragmatic comprehension abilities were compromised in young adults with SLD. In this clinical population we also found a link between pragmatic comprehension and visual theory of mind. Finally, independently from the presence of SLD, pragmatics abilities were in relationship with quality of life.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Overall, these data highlight the importance of including pragmatic abilities both in the clinical evaluation, as well as in psychological intervention for adults with SLD.

It is time to address language disorders in schizophrenia: A RCT on the efficacy of a novel training targeting the pragmatics of communication (PragmaCom)

INTRODUCTION

Language and communication disruptions in schizophrenia are at the center of a large body of investigation. Yet, the remediation of such disruptions is still in its infancy. Here we targeted what is known to be one of the most damaged language domains in schizophrenia, namely pragmatics, by conducting a pragmatics-centered intervention with a randomized controlled trial design and assessing also durability and generalization. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study with these characteristics.

METHODS

Inspired by the Gricean account of natural language use, we tailored a novel treatment addressing the pragmatics of communication (PragmaCom) and we tested its efficacy in a sample of individuals with schizophrenia randomized to the experimental group or to an active control group. The primary outcome with respect to the efficacy of the PragmaCom was measured by changes in pragmatic abilities (as evaluated with the global score of the Assessment of Pragmatic Abilities and Cognitive Substrates test) from baseline to 12 weeks and at 3-month follow-up. The secondary outcome was measured by changes in metaphor comprehension, abstract thinking, and global functioning from baseline to 12 weeks and at 3-month follow-up.

RESULTS

Relative to the control group, at post-test the PragmaCom group showed greater and enduring improvement in global pragmatic skills and in metaphor comprehension. At follow-up, these improvements persisted and the PragmaCom exerted beneficial effects also on functioning.

CONCLUSIONS

Despite the limited sample size, we believe that these findings offer initial yet encouraging evidence of the possibility to improve pragmatic skills with a theoretically grounded approach and to obtain durable and clinically relevant benefits. We argue that it is time that therapeutic efforts embrace communicative dysfunctions in order to improve illness outcome.

How do children overcome their pragmatic performance problems in the true belief task? The role of advanced pragmatics and higher-order theory of mind

The true belief (TB) control condition of the classical location-change task asks children to ascribe a veridical belief to an agent to predict her action (analog to the false belief (FB) condition to test Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities). Studies that administered TB tasks to a broad age range of children yielded surprising findings of a U-shaped performance curve in this seemingly trivial task. Children before age four perform competently in the TB condition. Children who begin to solve the FB condition at age four, however, fail the TB condition and only from around age 10, children succeed again. New evidence suggests that the decline in performance around age four reflects pragmatic confusions caused by the triviality of the task rather than real competence deficits in ToM. Based on these results, it can be hypothesized that the recovery of performance at the end of the U-shaped curve reflects underlying developments in children's growing pragmatic awareness. The aim of the current set of studies, therefore, was to test whether the developmental change at the end of the U-shaped performance curve can be explained by changes in children's pragmatic understanding and by more general underlying developmental changes in recursive ToM or recursive thinking in general. Results from Study 1 (N = 81, 6-10 years) suggest that children's recursive ToM, but not their advanced pragmatic understanding or general recursive thinking abilities predict their TB performance. However, this relationship could not be replicated in Study 2 (N = 87, 6-10 years) and Study 3 (N = 64, 6-10 years) in which neither recursive ToM nor advanced pragmatic understanding or recursive thinking explained children's performance in the TB task. The studies therefore remain inconclusive regarding explanations for the end of the U-shaped performance curve. Future research needs to investigate potential pragmatic and general cognitive foundations of this developmental change more thoroughly.

The development of neural responses to emotional faces: A review of evidence from event-related potentials during early and middle childhood

Facial emotion processing (FEP) develops throughout childhood and provides crucial social information necessary for the interpretation and prediction of others' behaviour. This systematic review, which includes a meta-regression component, sought to explore the development of FEP event-related potentials (P100, N170, and late positive potential [LPP]) in children aged three to twelve years. Thirty-four studies, representing data from 1511 children, were included in the review. The combination of meta-regression and systematic review suggest that P100 amplitude decreases with increasing age in response to emotional facial stimuli. P100 latency may show a gradual decrease around the age of ten. In terms of the N170, it is suggested that amplitude follows a non-linear trend with age, and latency may decrease in early childhood before plateauing during middle childhood. Of note, review of the literature indicates that substantial methodological differences and high levels of heterogeneity exist. We suggest future research considers these results within the context of emotion-specific development, whilst also acknowledging how this may relate to individual social functioning skills across early-to-middle childhood.

¿El entrenamiento en lectura de creencias puede influir sobre la competencia pragmática?: un estudio sobre las relaciones de estas capacidades cognitivas en la infancia

Con el objetivo de indagar respecto a la influencia de la lectura de creencias sobre la competencia pragmática, en el presente estudio 56 niños de entre 48 y 54 meses pertenecientes al programa Buen Comienzo de la ciudad de Medellín participaron en un diseño experimental pre-post con grupo control. Para la evaluación de la lectura de creencias se adaptaron al español cuatro pruebas de la escala de Wellman y Liu (2004), mientras que para evaluar la competencia pragmática se adaptaron cuatro situaciones comunicativas propuestas por Sacco et al. (2008). Para la manipulación de la variable se llevaron a cabo 10 sesiones de entrenamiento en lectura de creencias. De acuerdo con los resultados intragrupo, el programa de entrenamiento fue efectivo para mejorar la variable entrenada, pues el grupo experimental mejoró su desempeño en la lectura de creencias (p = .007; d = –.663) y en la competencia pragmática (p = .007; d = .648); no obstante, aunque se encontraron diferencias significativas entre el grupo experimental y el grupo control para la lectura de creencias (p = .001; d = .472), no fue así para el desempeño en la competencia pragmática (p = .340; d = .143). A la luz de estos resultados, no es posible asegurar una relación de influencia de la lectura de creencias sobre la competencia pragmática; sin embargo, se encontró un modelo de regresión lineal satisfactorio cuando se incluyeron en los análisis variables sociodemográficas. Al final del artículo se discute respecto a la necesidad de integrar variables de contexto cuando se indaga por una posible relación de influencia de una variable psicológica sobre otra.

Neuropsychological Development of Cool and Hot Executive Functions Between 6 and 12 Years of Age: A Systematic Review

Previous studies on the development of executive functions (EFs) in middle childhood have traditionally focused on cognitive, or "cool," EFs: working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. However, knowledge of the development of socio-emotional, or "hot," EFs, such as delay of gratification, decision-making and theory of mind, is more limited. The main aims of this systematic review were to characterize the typical development of both the primary cool and hot EFs in middle childhood, and to identify the main tools for evaluating EFs as a whole. We conducted a systematic search on studies of cognitive and socio-emotional EFs published in the last 5 years in Pubmed, PsycInfo, and WoS databases. Of 44 studies selected, we found a variety of tasks measuring cool EFs, while measures of hot EFs were limited. Nevertheless, the available data suggest that cool and hot components follow distinct, but related, developmental trajectories during middle childhood.

Children with hearing impairment and early cochlear implant: A pragmatic assessment

Extensive research has demonstrated the benefits of cochlear implants (CI) in contributing to improve the linguistic skills of children with hearing impairment; however, few studies have focused on the development of pragmatic ability and its relationship with age of implantation. Pragmatics is the ability to use language in different contexts and its development has crucial implications, e.g., social inclusion and professional attainments. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive assessment of pragmatic ability using the Language Pragmatic Abilities (APL Medea), a battery composed by five different tasks: Comprehension of Metaphors, Implicit meaning, Comics, Situations and Colors Game (a perspective taking task). Eighteen children with early CI, belonging to 3 different age groups (6; 11-7; 11, 8; 0-8; 11 and 9; 0-9; 11 years-old), and twenty-four children with typical development (Control Group) participated to the study. We also investigated how the precocity of CI, i.e., age of first implantation, may affect the pragmatic development. Globally, children with CI obtained lower scores in the APL Medea battery than typically hearing children. However, focusing on the Medea tasks separately, children with CIs differed from their hearing peers only in Comics and Colors Game tasks. Finally, age of implantation was a moderate but significant predictor of pragmatic performance.

The mediating effect of language on the development of cognitive and affective theory of mind

Theory of mind (ToM) development is critical to effective social functioning and appears to depend on complementary language abilities. The current study explored the mediating influence of language on the development of both cognitive and affective ToM. A total of 151 children aged 5-12 years completed ToM (cognitive and affective) and language assessments, and parents provided ratings of their children's empathic ability. Results showed that language mediated the relationship between age and both cognitive and affective ToM but not parent-reported cognitive empathy. Examination of younger and older subgroups revealed that language mediated cognitive and affective ToM differently across developmental periods. Findings highlight the dynamic role that language plays in the development of both cognitive and affective ToM throughout early and middle childhood.

Case Report: Theory of Mind and Figurative Language in a Child With Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum

In this case report, we studied Theory of Mind (ToM) and figurative language comprehension in a 7.2-year-old child, conventionally named RJ, with isolated and complete agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC), a rare malformation due to the absence of the corpus callosum, the major tract connecting the two brain hemispheres. To study ToM, which is the capability to infer the other’s mental states, we used the classical false belief tasks, and to study figurative language, i.e., those linguistic usages involving non-literal meanings, we used tasks assessing metaphor and idiom comprehension. RJ’s intellectual level and his phonological, lexical, and grammatical abilities were all adequate. In both the ToM false belief tasks and novel sensory metaphor comprehension, RJ showed a delay of 3 years and a significant gap compared to a typically developing control group, while in idioms, his performance was at the border of average. These outcomes suggest that RJ has a specific pragmatic difficulty in all tasks where he must interpret the other’s communicative intention, as in ToM tasks and novel sensory metaphor comprehension. The outcomes also open up interesting insights into the relationships between ToM and figurative language in children with isolated and complete ACC.

How to improve social communication in aging: Pragmatic and cognitive interventions

Among all aspects of the linguistic and communicative competence, pragmatics seems especially vulnerable in aging, due also to cognitive decline. However, pragmatics has never been considered as an intervention target in healthy aging. Here we tested the effects of a novel training program to improve pragmatics (PragmaCom) in older adults, compared with an active cognitive control group in a randomized-controlled-trial design. Both the PragmaCom group and the control group improved in pragmatic skills such as understanding metaphors and avoiding off-topic speech, indicating that it is possible to improve pragmatics in aging both with a specific training and with a cognitive training. Individual cognitive factors predicted pragmatic improvement in the control group, while in the PragmaCom group benefits were less dependent on individual characteristics. We discuss the results in terms of pragmatic plasticity, highlighting the importance of these findings for promoting older adults' social communication and well-being.

A leopard cannot change its spots: A novel pragmatic account of concretism in schizophrenia

Concretism is a well-known feature of schizophrenia, tracing back to the early descriptions of the disease and commonly associated with the literal interpretation of figurative expressions such as proverbs, metaphors, and idioms. However, figurative expressions are not all alike in terms of linguistic and pragmatic processes. Determining if some figurative types are more impaired than others and if the type of task affects the performance constitutes an open issue with implications for the description of the clinical profile and for treatment. We run a fine-grained assessment of figurative language comprehension by comparing 47 patients with schizophrenia and 39 controls in three figurative types (idioms, metaphors, proverbs) presented in two response formats (multiple-choice, verbal-explanation), considering also the role of cognitive and clinical variables and the impact on quality of life. Mixed-effects models analysis revealed that: i) patients performed worse than controls across figurative types and response formats, indicating a diffuse impairment; ii) there is an interplay of figurative type and response format, which makes verbal-explanation of proverbs especially challenging; iii) in patients, problems in figurative language are largely connected with formal thought disorder and global IQ. Moreover, multiple-choice of metaphors was associated with patients' quality of life. This study offers a novel account of concretism, framed in pragmatics and figurative language processing. Adopting this perspective allowed us to describe the nuances of concretism, which areas in the figurative domain are especially challenging for patients and which ones capture differences in functioning, in order to guide intervention programs and integration in society.

Theory of mind, language, and reading: Developmental relations from early childhood to early adolescence

This study longitudinally investigated the relation between theory of mind (ToM) and verbal language skills in 231 children from preschool to early adolescence. Further, links to reading comprehension of texts at age 13;7 (years;months) were examined. To assess ToM, children completed false belief tasks at 5;6 and the Strange Stories at 12;8. To assess language, children completed a receptive grammar/sentence comprehension test at 3;6 and 5;6, a receptive vocabulary test at 3;6, 5;6 and 12;8, as well as a test of listening comprehension of texts at 13;7. A bidirectional relation between early and advanced measures of children's language skills and ToM was found: Changes in ToM were predicted by language skills, especially by receptive grammar/sentence comprehension; changes in children's receptive vocabulary were predicted by early ToM. However, early ToM had no direct or indirect effect on later listening comprehension or reading comprehension after controlling for early language skills. Only children's advanced ToM had a small indirect effect on reading comprehension, via listening comprehension. The results are discussed in light of ToM stability over time, and theories on how language and ToM development are intertwined.

The Comprehension of Metaphorical Descriptions Conveying Gender Stereotypes. An Exploratory Study

In this adjective elicitation study, we investigated the comprehension of Italian sentences where a metaphorically intended noun (e.g., butterfly, nightmare) was used to describe a gender-stereotyped or stereotype-neutral individual (e.g., flute player, engineer, person). Specifically, we explored whether and to what extent meaning availability and the affective valence of these metaphorical descriptions (e.g., This flute player is a butterfly) varied as a function of the stereotypical or stereotype-neutral nature of the sentential subject, the male vs. female direction of the stereotype, and the grammatical gender marked in the subject noun phrase. Our goals were to test whether the meaning of metaphorical descriptions was equally available regardless of the presence and direction of the gender stereotype and of the grammatical gender of the subject, and whether the adjectives expressing the sentential meaning had the same affective valence no matter who was the subject. The results showed that it was easier (i.e., more adjectives came up to mind) to express the sentence meaning when the sentences described male stereotyped individuals than female stereotyped or stereotype-neutral individuals. The adjective valence did not significantly change according to the subject type. Participants produced adjectives with the wrong grammatical gender more often for males in stereotypically female occupations than for females in stereotypically male occupations. These gender errors occurred also when the sentences described females engaged in stereotypically female occupations. Overall, these results extend to metaphorical descriptions previous findings showing that a social group (males) is seen as more normative than another (females), and acts as the unmarked normative group.

Perceived access to resources and young children's fairness judgments

This study examined how young children's (N = 101, M_age = 4.14 years, SD = 0.57) perceptions of their families' access to resources affect their views on others' use and distribution of familiar items. Using a simple measure involving stickers, children identified their families as either lower, higher, or in the middle in access to resources. Then, children evaluated a scenario in which an individual took crayons from one person and gave them to another in order to establish equality. Children who saw themselves as higher in access to resources determined that this was "not okay" (ownership took priority). By contrast, children who saw themselves as lower in access to resources or in the middle did not consistently prioritize equality or ownership. Thus, not only did young children think about how much or how little their families had, but these perceptions also played a role in their reasoning about the fair treatment of others.

Reasoning on Figurative Language: A Preliminary Study on Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Klinefelter Syndrome

In this study we explored metaphor and idiom competencies in two clinical populations, children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) and children with Klinefelter syndrome (KS), (age range: 9⁻12), compared to typically developing (TD) children of the same age. These three groups were tested with two multiple-choice tests assessing idiom comprehension through iconic and verbal alternatives and a metaphor comprehension test composed of novel, physical-psychological metaphors, requesting verbal explanations. To these instruments, another test was added, assessing basic sentence comprehension. Performances on the different linguistic tasks were examined by means of discriminant analysis which showed that idiom comprehension had a very small weight in distinguishing children with ASD from TD controls, whereas metaphor explanation did distinguish them. This study suggests that figurative language comprehension is not a "core deficit" per se in individuals with ASD. Only when the task requires to explicitly construct and explain a semantic mapping between the two terms of a metaphor does the performance of children with ASD significantly deviate from the typical population. These results are interpreted in terms of a difficulty in children with ASD and KS with complex cognitive and linguistic processes and also in relation with clinical assessment.

Development of Quantitative and Temporal Scalar Implicatures in a Felicity Judgment Task

Experimental investigations into children's interpretation of scalar terms show that children have difficulties with scalar implicatures in tasks. In contrast with adults, they are for instance not able to derive the pragmatic interpretation that "some" means "not all" (Noveck, 2001; Papafragou and Musolino, 2003). However, there is also substantial experimental evidence that children are not incapable of drawing scalar inferences and that they are aware of the pragmatic potential of scalar expressions. In these kinds of studies, the prime interest is to discover what conditions facilitate implicature production for children. One of the factors that seem to be difficult for children is the generation of the scalar alternative. In a Felicity Judgment Task (FJT) the alternative is given. Participants are presented with a pair of utterances and asked to choose the most felicitous description. In such a task, even 5-year-old children are reported to show a very good performance. Our study wants to build on this tradition, by using a FJT where not only "some-all" choices are given, but also "some-many" and "many-all." In combination with a manipulation of the number of successes/failures in the stories, this enabled us to construct control, critical and ambiguous items. We compared the performance of 59 5-year-old children with that of 34 11-year-old children. The results indicated that performance of both age groups was clearly above chance, replicating previous findings. However, for the 5-year-old children, the critical and ambiguous items were more difficult than the control items and they also performed worse on these two types of items than the 11-year-old children. Interestingly with respect to the issue of scalar diversity, the 11-year-old children were also presented temporal items, which turned out to be more difficult than the quantitative ones.