Salience and Context: Interpretation of Metaphorical and Literal Language by Young Adults Diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome

TY - JOUR

T1 - Salience and Context: Interpretation of Metaphorical and Literal Language by Young Adults Diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome

AU - Giora, Rachel

AU - Gazal, Oshrat

AU - Goldstein, Idit

AU - Fein, Ofer

AU - Stringaris, Argyris

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - Asperger's Syndrome (AS) involves difficulties in social communication but no delays in language or cognitive development. According to the received view, individuals with AS are biased toward the literal and are insensitive to contextual cues. According to the graded salience hypothesis (Giora, 1997, 2003), participants with AS and controls would be sensitive to both context and degree of salience rather than to degree of nonliterality. Our results show that while individuals with AS generally performed worse than controls, their overall pattern of response was similar to that of controls: both groups performed worse on novel than on familiar expressions, whether literal or metaphorical; both groups benefited from context, which reduced response times and error rates on novel but not on familiar metaphors; both groups rated negative utterances as more metaphoric than their affirmative counterparts. Individuals with AS, then, are sensitive to context and degree of salience and are not biased toward the literal.

AB - Asperger's Syndrome (AS) involves difficulties in social communication but no delays in language or cognitive development. According to the received view, individuals with AS are biased toward the literal and are insensitive to contextual cues. According to the graded salience hypothesis (Giora, 1997, 2003), participants with AS and controls would be sensitive to both context and degree of salience rather than to degree of nonliterality. Our results show that while individuals with AS generally performed worse than controls, their overall pattern of response was similar to that of controls: both groups performed worse on novel than on familiar expressions, whether literal or metaphorical; both groups benefited from context, which reduced response times and error rates on novel but not on familiar metaphors; both groups rated negative utterances as more metaphoric than their affirmative counterparts. Individuals with AS, then, are sensitive to context and degree of salience and are not biased toward the literal.

U2 - 10.1080/10926488.2012.638823

DO - 10.1080/10926488.2012.638823

M3 - Article

SN - 1092-6488

VL - 27

SP - 22

EP - 54

JO - METAPHOR AND SYMBOL

JF - METAPHOR AND SYMBOL

IS - 1

ER -