Metaphor-related figurative language comprehension in clinical populations: a critical review

Abstract

<p>This paper aims to critically review current studies with respect to definitions,<br />methods, and results on the comprehension of metaphor, metonymy,<br />idioms, and proverbs under the following clinical conditions: aphasia,<br />Alzheimer’s disease, autism, brain injuries, specific language impairment,<br />and Williams Syndrome. A comprehensive search of experimental<br />psycholinguistic research was conducted using EBSCOhost, PsychInfo,<br />PUBMED, and Web of Science databases. Thirty-eight studies met the<br />review inclusion criteria. Results point to deficits in figurative language<br />comprehension in all conditions considered, lack of clear definitions of<br />the phenomena investigated, and varied methods throughout the sample.<br />Patients’ difficulties are attributed to multiple factors, such as a lack of<br />Theory of Mind, executive dysfunctions, and poor semantic knowledge.<br />The study of nonliteral aspects of language comprehension in clinical<br />populations reveals a range of disparate impairments. There was no specific<br />feature about metaphor-related phenomena identified that could, on its own,<br />account for the difficulty some populations have to understand figurative<br />language. Rather, metaphor-related language comprehension difficulties<br />are often part of pragmatic, linguistic, and/or cognitive impairments.</p><p>Keywords: Figurative language. Metaphor. Metonymy. Proverb. Clinical<br />populations</p>

A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies on metaphor comprehension in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: Do task properties matter?

“…as the main difficulty in assessing the contribution of different tasks/variables, and they emphasized the urgent need of a careful review of the literature. Likewise, a more recent review by Siqueira, Marques, and Gibbs (2016) claimed that contrasting findings across studies of figurative language (including metaphors) in different clinical populations (including ASD) may be related more to issues related to data collection than to a specific difficulty one population may have in understanding a certain type of figurative language.…”

Processing Metaphors: Models of Processing, Factors Influencing Processing Mechanisms, and Recent Studies in Turkish

“…It is not difficult to imagine that someone who fails to understand and properly respond to symbolic meaning despite being a native speaker would encounter serious social, educational, or societal problems. This failure is often taken to reflect individual differences at cognitive or socio-cognitive levels such as autism spectrum condition, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, Williams Syndrome, or aphasia (Dennis, Lazenby, & Lockyer, 2001;Kalandadze, Norbury, Naerland, & Naess, 2018;Mashal & Kasirer, 2011; for a review see, Siqueira, Marques, & Gibbs Jr, 2016). Third, understanding the human capacity to interpret and generate symbolic meaning would provide technological insights.…”

Estimating Lexical Availability of European Portuguese Proverbs

“…As linguistic material for diagnosis/therapy of language impairment, particularly in the case of pathologies resulting from trauma, proverbs are deemed as effective tools, since they can be used as stimuli or prompts to exercise different cognitive structures, particularly long-term memory, even when the ability to speak is impaired [10][11][12][13][14].…”