Can You Play with Fire and Not Hurt Yourself? A Comparative Study in Figurative Language Comprehension between Individuals with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Individuals with High functioning autism (HFA) are distinguished by relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive skills. However, problems with pragmatic language skills have been consistently reported across the autistic spectrum, even when structural language is intact. Our main goal was to investigate how highly verbal individuals with autism process figurative language and whether manipulation of the stimuli presentation modality had an impact on the processing. We were interested in the extent to which visual context, e.g., an image corresponding either to the literal meaning or the figurative meaning of the expression may facilitate responses to such expressions. Participants with HFA and their typically developing peers (matched on intelligence and language level) completed a cross-modal sentence-picture matching task for figurative expressions and their target figurative meaning represented in images. We expected that the individuals with autism would have difficulties in appreciating the non-literal nature of idioms and metaphors, despite intact structural language skills. Analyses of accuracy and reaction times showed clearly that the participants with autism performed at a lower level than their typically developing peers. Moreover, the modality in which the stimuli were presented was an important variable in task performance for the more transparent expressions. The individuals with autism displayed higher error rates and greater reaction latencies in the auditory modality compared to the visual stimulus presentation modality, implying more difficulty. Performance differed depending on type of expression. Participants had more difficulty understanding the culturally-based expressions, but not expressions grounded in human experience (biological idioms). This research highlights the importance of stimulus presentation modality and that this can lead to differences in figurative language comprehension between typically and atypically developing individuals. The current study also contributes to current debates on the role of structural language in figurative language comprehension in autism.

Gaze and Motor Traces of Language Processing: Evidence from Autism Spectrum Disorders in Comparison to Typical Controls

“…A series of recent studies, which included highly verbal individuals with autism, carefully matched to controls on both age and structural language and non-verbal intelligence measures, shows evidence of significant differences between the participants with autism and controls in both reaction latencies and response accuracy on tasks involving figurative (non-literal) expressions (Chahboun, Vulchanov, Saldaña, Eshuis, & Vulchanova, 2016, 2017Vulchanova & Vulchanov, 2018). These results are indicative of problems in the on-line processing and off-line comprehension of a variety of figurative expressions, ranging from highly decomposable/transparent to non-transparent expressions.…”

“…For example, in tasks where participants have to select a target item from two different choices, curvature in mouse trajectories can be interpreted as the effect of uncertainty and the competition between partially activated representations (Barca & Pezzulo, 2012;Bruhn, Huette, & Spivey, 2014;McKinstry, Dale, & Spivey, 2008;Spivey, Grosjean, & Knoblich, 2005;Spivey, Dale, Knoblich, & Grosjean, 2010). In addition to eye-and hand-movement data, we also collected reaction times and response accuracy data reported in Chahboun et al (2016). The analyses of accuracy and reaction times in that study revealed that the participants with autism performed at a lower level than their typically developing peers.…”

Can you tell it by the prime? A study of metaphorical priming in high‐functioning autism in comparison with matched controls

“…Such a dissociation has already been observed in an experiment on the processing of idioms (Chahboun et al . ) where the auditory modality appeared to be more challenging for the participants with autism. Furthermore, previous research has established problems in audiovisual integration in autism (Irwin et al .…”

Over-imitation in autism spectrum disorder: causally opaque and transparent actions

“…Moreover, in this study, less transparent, cultural-idiom (less easily inferred from context) and instructive expressions follow different development trajectories. In the ASD group these trends were not present, as for instance, it was absent the superiority in processing transparent expressions in the oral modality (Chahboun et al 2016). Further investigation that directly tackles the trajectories of both over-imitation and reproduction of the methods observed seems critical at this point, as well as exploring other variables that might contribute to this paradoxical effect in the way we interact with others and their artefacts.…”

“…It is set, that the digital age puts new and specific challenges to the research in human development, such as the effects of the modality of the input in language acquisition and learning (Vulchanova et al 2017). In one study with high-functioning children and young adults with ASD, it was observed that there were differences regarding the modality of the stimuli presentation, with ASD participants not showing the preference for oral language: it was observed, interestingly, a differential effect of the degree of transparency of the stimuli in processing figurative language (Chahboun et al 2016). Moreover, in this study, less transparent, cultural-idiom (less easily inferred from context) and instructive expressions follow different development trajectories.…”