Comprehending Non-literal Language: Effects of Aging and Bilingualism

Comprehension of metaphors in patients with mild cognitive impairment: Evidence from behavioral and ERP data

The ability of metaphor comprehension reflects the cognitive status of elders. This study explored the ability of Chinese aMCI patients to access metaphorical meaning based on linguistic models of metaphor processing. ERPs were recorded from 30 aMCI patients and 30 control participants when judging the meaningfulness of literal sentences, conventional metaphors, novel metaphors, and anomalous expressions. The lower accuracy of the aMCI group revealed an impairment in metaphoric comprehension ability, but this difference was not reflected in ERPs data. In all participants, anomalous endings to sentences evoked the most negative N400 amplitude, whereas conventional metaphors evoked the smallest N400 amplitude. The LPC amplitude might be masked by a metaphor rebound effect when processing novel metaphors, which was consistent with the Graded Salience Model that novel metaphors needed further semantic integration. The results suggest that the aMCI patients may suffer an impairment in metaphorical meaning recognition, which the declined working memory may cause.

The role of mentalizing capacity and ecological language diversity on irony comprehension in bilingual adults

Diverse bilingual experiences have implications for language comprehension, including pragmatic elements such as verbal irony. Irony comprehension is shaped by an interplay of linguistic, cognitive, and social factors, including individual differences in bilingual experience. We examined the relationship between individual differences related to bilingualism, specifically, the capacity to understand others' mental states and ambient exposure to language diversity, on irony comprehension. We tested 54 healthy bilingual adults, living in a linguistically diverse region-Montréal, Canada-on an irony comprehension task. This task involved reading positive and negative short stories that concluded with an ironic or literal statement, which were rated on appropriateness and perceived irony. While both irony forms were rated as less appropriate and more ironic than literal statements, ironic criticisms (following a negative context) were rated as more appropriate and higher in perceived irony than ironic compliments (following a positive context). As expected, these ratings varied as a function of individual differences in mentalizing and neighborhood language diversity. Greater mentalizing patterned with more appropriate ratings to ironic statements in high language diversity neighborhoods and with less appropriate ratings to ironic statements in low language diversity neighborhoods. Perceived irony ratings to ironic compliments increased with mentalizing as neighborhood language diversity increased. These results indicate that pragmatic language comprehension and its social cognitive underpinnings may be environmentally contextualized processes.

Does bilingualism come with linguistic costs? A meta-analytic review of the bilingual lexical deficit

A series of recent studies have shown that the once-assumed cognitive advantage of bilingualism finds little support in the evidence available to date. Surprisingly, however, the view that bilingualism incurs linguistic costs (the so-called lexical deficit) has not yet been subjected to the same degree of scrutiny, despite its centrality for our understanding of the human capacity for language. The current study implemented a comprehensive meta-analysis to address this gap. By analyzing 478 effect sizes from 130 studies on expressive vocabulary, we found that observed lexical deficits could not be attributed to bilingualism: Simultaneous bilinguals (who acquired both languages from birth) did not exhibit any lexical deficit, nor did sequential bilinguals (who acquired one language from birth and a second language after that) when tested in their mother tongue. Instead, systematic evidence for a lexical deficit was found among sequential bilinguals when tested in their second language, and more so for late than for early second language learners. This result suggests that a lexical deficit may be a phenomenon of second language acquisition rather than bilingualism per se.

A cross-sectional study to assess pragmatic strengths and weaknesses in healthy ageing

Background

Ageing refers to the natural and physiological changes that individuals experience over the years. This process also involves modifications in terms of communicative-pragmatics, namely the ability to convey meanings in social contexts and to interact with other people using various expressive means, such as linguistic, extralinguistic and paralinguistic aspects of communication. Very few studies have provided a complete assessment of communicative-pragmatic performance in healthy ageing.

Methods

The aim of this study was to comprehensively assess communicative-pragmatic ability in three samples of 20 (N = 60) healthy adults, each belonging to a different age range (20–40, 65–75, 76–86 years old) and to compare their performance in order to observe any potential changes in their ability to communicate. We also explored the potential role of education and sex on the communicative-pragmatic abilities observed. The three age groups were evaluated with a between-study design by means of the Assessment Battery for Communication (ABaCo), a validated assessment tool characterised by five scales: linguistic, extralinguistic, paralinguistic, contextual and conversational.

Results

The results indicated that the pragmatic ability assessed by the ABaCo is poorer in older participants when compared to the younger ones (main effect of age group: F(2,56) = 9.097; p < .001). Specifically, significant differences were detected in tasks on the extralinguistic, paralinguistic and contextual scales. Whereas the data highlighted a significant role of education (F(1,56) = 4.713; p = .034), no sex-related differences were detected.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that the ageing process may also affect communicative-pragmatic ability and a comprehensive assessment of the components of such ability may help to better identify difficulties often experienced by older individuals in their daily life activities.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-022-03304-z.

Interpretation of familiar metaphors and proverbs by Polish people in middle and late adulthood

BACKGROUND

The ability to understand figurative language, including metaphors and proverbs, decreases with age, although the phenomenon is not universal. Cognitive capacities and education play an important role in the competence connected with figurative language use and comprehension in people during the second half of life.

AIMS

To identify possible similarities and differences in task performance by subjects representing middle adulthood (40-49 and 50-59 years old) and late adulthood (60-69 and 70-92 years old). Additionally, the analyses took into account factors significantly affecting the results, that is, tasks type (metaphors versus proverbs), the way the answer is given (open-ended versus multiple choice) and types of answers (abstract and concrete). This study also aimed to identify some cognitive correlates of task completion.

METHODS & PROCEDURES

A total of 86 Caucasian subjects, aged 40-92 years, participated in this study (M_{whole group} = 62.37, SD = 15.53); the group included 20 subjects aged 40-49 years (M_age = 45.4; SD = 3.05), 20 aged 50-59 years (M_age = 55.50; SD = 2.64), 20 aged 60-69 years (M_age = 64.40; SD = 2.78), and 26 aged 70-92 years (M_age = 79.15; SD = 6.27). A total of 20 well-known Polish metaphors and 20 popular Polish proverbs were used to assess the level of proverb and metaphor comprehension. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment Scale and Vocabulary subtest of the Polish version of WAIS-R were applied to assess the cognitive functions.

OUTCOMES & RESULTS

The results of the analyses suggest that there are differences as well as certain similarities between the groups. At 70+ years of age, the ability to explain and comprehend metaphors and proverbs decreases when compared with younger adults. In the 70+ group, the ability to grasp the meaning of both metaphors and proverbs is similar, unlike in the younger groups which present a better ability to explain and comprehend metaphors than proverbs. The conditions related to the types of tasks, that is, spontaneous interpretation and choice of responses, do not affect scores of the oldest subjects.

CONCLUSIONS

The analysis of response types, that is, abstract versus concrete, shows that, compared with younger groups, people aged 70+ years tend to less frequently provide abstract explanations and more often give concrete (but correct) responses, referring to situational data or examples from everyday life. Moreover, attention, short-term/delayed memory and lexical reserve influence the ability to use and comprehend figurative language to a varied degree.

WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS

What is already known on the subject Studies focusing on metaphor and proverb interpretation by people in middle and late adulthood are rather scarce, and what is more, they provide inconclusive results. Research has shown that the capacities related to attention and memory, as well as language resources and executive functions, all deteriorate in older people, which negatively affects their ability to understand metaphors and proverbs. However, varied methods are applied to assess these skills, which may explain why the related findings are inconsistent. What this paper adds to existing knowledge The novelty of this study lies in the fact that the analyses took into account the type of task (metaphors versus proverbs), the method of responding (open-ended versus multiple-choice) and the nature of the answer (abstract versus concrete). This allowed us to highlight intergroup differences and to show specific characteristics of proverb and metaphor spontaneous interpretation and choice of correct answers. The results were compared among the participants representing relatively narrow age ranges classified as middle and late adulthood. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? Analysis of how people in middle and late adulthood interpret metaphors and proverbs might constitute an element of preliminary screening assessment showing whether a decrease in this capacity is in the normal range or if it reflects a serious cognitive decline. It would be worthwhile if the diagnostic process included varied task designs, that is, both metaphors and proverbs, as well as spontaneous interpretation and multiple-choice, as well as varied types of responses.

Impairment in oral medical comprehension in multiple sclerosis

In multiple sclerosis (MS), medical comprehension of website information and informed consent is reported to be impaired. The aim of the present study was to investigate oral medical comprehension of literal, figurative and humorous language in MS through videos of physician-patient exchanges. A group of 35 MS patients was compared to a control group (38 healthy participants). Participants were shown twelve filmed sketches consisting of a patient's question followed by the doctor's response and had to choose the meaning of the physician's response among three possibilities. Group analyses (non-parametric tests, Mann-Whitney) revealed significantly lower scores for MS patients compared to controls for figurative and humorous items. The opposite was observed for literal items. At the individual level, 17% of MS patients were impaired in their comprehension of figurative items and 32% for humorous items. Among them, 20% were impaired in both categories, 20% selectively in figurative comprehension and 60% selectively in humorous comprehension. These preliminary results suggest that a high proportion of MS patients (40%) may be impaired in the non-literal comprehension of simple medical responses. The better performances obtained for literal items suggest a more concrete linguistic decoding in MS. On a theoretical level, the double dissociations shown between figurative and humorous items in patients are not compatible with a serial model of linguistic processing.