Christelle Declercq

Aging and inhibition processes: the case of metaphor treatment.

The inhibitory deficit hypothesis has often been cited as a possible explanation for cognitive changes related to age. The aim of this study was to develop a new procedure for evaluating effortful inhibition on the basis of the comprehension of metaphors. Our experiment was carried out on younger and older adults, in whom we also measured inhibitory capacity, working memory, and processing speed. The results show that older participants required a longer time and made more frequent errors in rejecting metaphors versus literally false statements. The interference effect was predicted by the psychometric tests designed to evaluate inhibition.

Differential bilateral involvement of the parietal gyrus during predicative metaphor processing: an auditory fMRI study.

Despite the growing literature on figurative language processing, there is still debate as to which cognitive processes and neural bases are involved. Furthermore, most studies have focused on nominal metaphor processing without any context, and very few have used auditory presentation. We therefore investigated the neural bases of the comprehension of predicative metaphors presented in a brief context, in an auditory, ecological way. The comprehension of their literal counterparts served as a control condition. We also investigated the link between working memory and verbal skills and regional activation. Comparisons of metaphorical and literal conditions revealed bilateral activation of parietal areas including the left angular (lAG) and right inferior parietal gyri (rIPG) and right precuneus. Only verbal skills were associated with lAG (but not rIPG) activation. These results indicated that predicative metaphor comprehension share common activations with other metaphors. Furthermore, individual verbal skills could have an impact on figurative language processing.

Emotion recognition by children with Down syndrome: A longitudinal study

Abstract Background According to the literature, children with Down syndrome (DS) have difficulties recognising facial expressions. Yet abilities to recognise emotional expressions are often assessed in tasks that imply comprehension of words for emotions. We investigated the development of these abilities in children with DS in a longitudinal study that did not involve lexical knowledge of emotions. Method Children with DS and nonspecific intellectual disability and typically developing children matched for developmental age (DA) were assessed once a year over 3 years. They were asked to recognise the facial expression of an emotion after hearing a vocalisation. Results In each annual session, children with DS were not significantly different from others at recognising emotions. Their abilities to discriminate basic emotions improved significantly and to a similar extent to those of other children. Conclusion The findings indicate that children with DS develop emotion recognition abilities similarly to other children of the same DA.

Speaking Volumes: A Longitudinal Study of Lexical and Grammatical Growth between 17 and 42 Months.

Dynamic analyses of language growth tell us how vocabulary and grammar develop and how the two might be intertwined. Analyses of growth curves between 17 and 42 months, based on longitudinal data for 34 children, revealed interesting patterns of vocabulary and grammatical developments. They showed that these patterns were nonlinear, but with coinciding peaks of growth, suggesting a bilateral relationship between acquisition of vocabulary and grammar. A more detailed analysis of specific components of vocabulary (nouns, verbs, grammatical words) and grammar showed that each followed its own developmental course, but that its growth rates were likely to be negatively or positively correlated with those of other components. For example, a faster rate for acquiring nouns coincided with a slower rate for verbs. Last, an assessment of intra-individual variability in three children showed that mean scores obscure individual profiles.

Les Nuages Sont Un Troupeau De Moutons : À Quel âGe Les Enfants Comprennent-Ils Qu'il N'y Pas De Moutons Dans le Ciel ?

This study examined the evolution of metaphor understanding in 4- to 7-year-old children. In Experiment 1, children listened to metaphoric and literal statements that were preceded by a context, and then had to choose among three proposed interpretations (literal, contextual, and correct for metaphors; one correct and two erroneous for literal statements), which one corresponded to the statement. Results showed that, between 4 and 7, children improved at choosing the correct interpretation only for metaphors, and that they frequently chose contextual interpretations. The metaphor-specific improvement might be explained in terms of a gain in cognitive flexibility, since for these statements, three acceptable interpretations were proposed compared to only one for literal statements. In Experiment 2, for all statements, children had to choose between three proposed interpretations, one correct and two erroneous. The difference between metaphors and literal statements was replicated. Metaphor understanding thus evolves between 4 and 7; depending on their age, children use the context or perform a semantic analysis of the words composing the statements.

Role of implicit learning abilities in metaphor understanding

Although the use of metaphors is a central component of language, the processes that sustain their comprehension have yet to be specified. Work in the fields of both metaphors and implicit learning suggests that implicit learning abilities facilitate the comprehension of metaphors. However, to date, no study has directly explored the relationships between the understanding of metaphors and so-called implicit learning tasks. We used a meaning decision task comparing literal, metaphorical and meaningless expressions to assess metaphor understanding and a probabilistic serial reaction time task for assessing implicit learning. Our results show that implicit learning positively predicts the time gap between responses to literal and metaphorical expressions and negatively predicts the difference between metaphorical and meaningless expressions. Thus, when confronted with novel metaphors, participants with higher implicit learning abilities are better able to identify that the expressions have some meaning. These results are interpreted in the context of metaphor understanding and psycholinguistic theories.