Abstract
Introduction: Idioms are commonly used in everyday language to convey emotions figuratively. The ability to comprehend and use idioms that incorporate emotional elements is crucial for effective communication in daily life, particularly among people with aphasia (PwA). Despite the interest in understanding the process of emotion idiom comprehension in PwA, limited information is available in the literature. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the process of emotion idiom comprehension in people with Wernicke’s aphasia (PwWA) and compare it with that of neurotypical individuals. Methods: Sixty idioms were selected based on their syntactic and semantic features, and participants evaluated their imageability. Sixteen idioms were chosen for the study, and two types of tasks were prepared: written idiom-picture matching and written idiom-written text matching. These tasks were administered to two groups: 11 PwWA and 11 neurotypical individuals. The results were analysed in terms of task performance, response type, syntactic and semantic features, and emotional content. Results: The emotion idiom comprehension scores of the PwWA group were significantly lower than those of the neurotypical participants. PwWA had greater difficulty with the written idiom-picture matching task and tended to rely on the literal meanings of the idioms. There were differences in the semantic features between the two groups. Among the emotion idioms, PwWA showed significant differences in the types of emotions they were able to comprehend. Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest that regardless of the syntactic content of idioms, PwWA’s ability to comprehend emotion idioms is impaired, and they tend to interpret them more literally. This study provides a useful method for assessing emotional idiom comprehension in PwA.
Journal Section:
Research Article
References
1.
2.
3.
Gibbs
R
Figurative language. The MIT encyclopedia of the cognitive sciences
. MIT Press
. 1999
. p. 314
5
.4.
Hamblin
JL
, Gibbs
RW
. Why you can’t kick the bucket as you slowly die: verbs in idiom comprehension
. J Psycholinguist Res
. 1999
;28
(1
):25
–39
.5.
Aydin
B
, Barin
M
, Yagiz
O
. Comprehension of idioms in Turkish aphasic participants
. J Psycholinguist Res
. 2017
;46
(6
):1485
–507
.6.
Cacciari
C
, Glucksberg
S
. Understanding idioms: do visual images reflect figurative meanings
. Eur J Cognit Psychol
. 1995
;7
(3
):283
–305
.7.
Cacciari
C
, Reati
F
, Colombo
MR
, Padovani
R
, Rizzo
S
, Papagno
C
. The comprehension of ambiguous idioms in aphasic patients
. Neuropsychologia
. 2006
;44
(8
):1305
–14
.8.
9.
Cacciari
C
, Glucksberg
S
. Understanding idiomatic expressions: the contribution of word meanings
. Advances in psychology
. Elsevier
. 1991
. p. 217
40
.10.
11.
Cain
K
, Oakhill
J
, Lemmon
K
. The relation between children’s reading comprehension level and their comprehension of idioms
. J Exp Child Psychol
. 2005
;90
(1
):65
–87
.12.
Nippold
MA
, Taylor
CL
. Idiom understanding in youth: further examination of familiarity and transparency
. J Speech Hear Res
. 1995
;38
(2
):426
–33
.13.
Gibbs
RW
Jr, O’Brien
JE
. Idioms and mental imagery: the metaphorical motivation for idiomatic meaning
. Cognition
. 1990
;36
(1
):35
–68
.14.
Levorato
MC
. Idiom comprehension in children: are the effects of semantic analysability and context separable
. Eur J Cognit Psychol
. 1999
;11
(1
):51
–66
.15.
Elkilic
G
. Turkish students’ understanding of transparent and opaque idioms in English in reading as well as in speaking
. J Lang Linguistic Stud
. 2008
4
2
).16.
Papagno
C
, Caporali
A
. Testing idiom comprehension in aphasic patients: the effects of task and idiom type
. Brain Lang
. 2007
;100
(2
):208
–20
.17.
Burgess
C
, Chiarello
C
. Neurocognitive mechanisms underlying metaphor comprehension and other figurative language
. Metaphor Symbol
. 1996
;11
(1
):67
–84
.18.
Schwanenflugel
PJ
, Stowe
RW
. Context availability and the processing of abstract and concrete words in sentences
. Read Res Q
. 1989
;24
(1
):114
–26
.19.
Wattenmaker
WD
, Shoben
EJ
. Context and the recallability of concrete and abstract sentences
. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cognit
. 1987
;13
(1
):140
–50
.20.
Garrett
MF
. The analysis of sentence production
. Psychology of learning and motivation
. Elsevier
. 1975
. p. 133
77
.21.
Cacciari
C
, Tabossi
P
. The comprehension of idioms
. J Mem Lang
. 1988
;27
(6
):668
–83
.22.
Giora
R
Understanding figurative and literal language: the graded salience hypothesis
. 1997
.23.
Giora
R
On our mind: salience, context, and figurative language
. Oxford University Press
. 2003
.24.
Gibbs
RW
Jr, Gibbs
RW
, Gibbs
J
The poetics of mind: figurative thought, language, and understanding
. Cambridge University Press
. 1994
.25.
Bonin
P
, Méot
A
, Bugaiska
A
. Norms and comprehension times for 305 French idiomatic expressions
. Behav Res Methods
. 2013
;45
(4
):1259
–71
.26.
Kousta
S-T
, Vigliocco
G
, Vinson
DP
, Andrews
M
, Del Campo
E
. The representation of abstract words: why emotion matters
. J Exp Psychol Gen
. 2011
;140
(1
):14
–34
.27.
Paivio
A
. Dual coding theory, word abstractness, and emotion: a critical review of Kousta et al. (2011)
. J Exp Psychol Gen
. 2013 Feb
142
1
282
7
.28.
Eviatar
Z
, Just
MA
. Brain correlates of discourse processing: an fMRI investigation of irony and conventional metaphor comprehension
. Neuropsychologia
. 2006
;44
(12
):2348
–59
.29.
Giora
R
, Zaidel
E
, Soroker
N
, Batori
G
, Kasher
A
. Differential effects of right-and left-hemisphere damage on understanding sarcasm and metaphor
. Metaphor Symb
. 2000
;15
(1
):63
–83
.30.
Soroker
N
, Kasher
A
, Giora
R
, Batori
G
, Corn
C
, Gil
M
et al. Processing of basic speech acts following localized brain damage: a new light on the neuroanatomy of language
. Brain Cogn
. 2005
;57
(2
):214
–7
.31.
Citron
FM
, Cacciari
C
, Kucharski
M
, Beck
L
, Conrad
M
, Jacobs
AM
. When emotions are expressed figuratively: psycholinguistic and Affective Norms of 619 Idioms for German (PANIG)
. Behav Res Methods
. 2016
;48
(1
):91
–111
.32.
Rapp
AM
, Leube
DT
, Erb
M
, Grodd
W
, Kircher
TT
. Laterality in metaphor processing: lack of evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging for the right hemisphere theory
. Brain Lang
. 2007
;100
(2
):142
–9
.33.
Stringaris
AK
, Medford
NC
, Giampietro
V
, Brammer
MJ
, David
AS
. Deriving meaning: distinct neural mechanisms for metaphoric, literal, and non-meaningful sentences
. Brain Lang
. 2007
;100
(2
):150
–62
.34.
Zaidel
E
, Kasher
A
, Soroker
N
, Batori
G
. Effects of right and left hemisphere damage on performance of the “Right Hemisphere Communication Battery”
. Brain Lang
. 2002
;80
(3
):510
–35
.35.
Gardner
H
, Brownell
HH
Right hemisphere communication battery
Boston (MA)
Psychology Service, VAMC
. 1986
.36.
Paivio
A
Mental representations: a dual coding approach
. Oxford University Press
. 1990
.37.
Pulvermüller
F
. Words in the brain’s language
. Behav Brain Sci
. 1999
;22
(2
):253
–79
.38.
Schwanenflugel
PJ
, Harnishfeger
KK
, Stowe
RW
. Context availability and lexical decisions for abstract and concrete words
. J Mem Lang
. 1988
;27
(5
):499
–520
.39.
Wiemer-Hastings
K
, Krug
J
, Xu
X
. Imagery, context availabilty, contextual constraint and abstractness
. Proc Annu Meet Cogn Sci Soc
. 2001
.40.
Barry
C
, Gerhand
S
. Both concreteness and age-of-acquisition affect reading accuracy but only concreteness affects comprehension in a deep dyslexic patient
. Brain Lang
. 2003
;84
(1
):84
–104
.41.
Kiran
S
, Sandberg
C
, Abbott
K
. Treatment for lexical retrieval using abstract and concrete words in persons with aphasia: effect of complexity
. Aphasiology
. 2009
;23
(7
):835
–53
.42.
Sandberg
C
, Kiran
S
. Analysis of abstract and concrete word processing in persons with aphasia and age-matched neurologically healthy adults using fMRI
. Neurocase
. 2014
;20
(4
):361
–88
.43.
Papagno
C
, Genoni
A
. The role of syntactic competence in idiom comprehension: a study on aphasic patients
. J Neurolinguistics
. 2004
;17
(5
):371
–82
.44.
Tompkins
CA
, Boada
R
, McGarry
K
. The access and processing of familiar idioms by brain-damaged and normally aging adults
. J Speech Hear Res
. 1992
;35
(3
):626
–37
.45.
Winner
E
, Gardner
H
. The comprehension of metaphor in brain-damaged patients
. Brain
. 1977
;100
(4
):717
–29
.46.
Maviş
İ
, Colay
K
, Topbaş
S
, Tanrıdağ
O
Gülhane Afazi Testi-2 (GAT-2)’nin standardizasyon ve geçerlik-güvenirlik çalışması
. 2007
.47.
Cieślicka
AB
, Rataj
K
, Jaworska
D
. Figurative language impairment in aphasic patients
. Neuropsychiatry Neuropsychol
. 2015
;6
(1
):1
–10
.48.
Milburn
E
, Warren
T
, Dickey
MW
. Idiom comprehension in aphasia: literal interference and abstract representation
. J Neurolinguistics
. 2018
;47
:16
–36
.49.
Akalın
ŞH
, Toparlı
R
, Aksu
BT
Atasözleri ve deyimler sözlüğü. Ankara: Türk Dil Kurumu Erişim adresi
. 2009
. Available from: https://sozluk.gov.tr/.50.
Maviş
İ
, Arslan
S
, Aydin
Ö
. Comprehension of word order in Turkish aphasia
. Aphasiology
. 2020
;34
(8
):999
–1015
.51.
Peterson
RR
, Burgess
C
, Dell
GS
, Eberhard
KM
. Dissociation between syntactic and semantic processing during idiom comprehension
. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn
. 2001
;27
(5
):1223
–37
.52.
Thompson
CK
, Lange
KL
, Schneider
SL
, Shapiro
LP
. Agrammatic and non-brain-damaged subjects’ verb and verb argument structure production
. Aphasiology
. 1997
11
4–5
473
90
.53.
54.
Wallace
SE
, Hux
K
, Brown
J
, Knollman-Porter
K
. High-context images: comprehension of main, background, and inferential information by people with aphasia
. Aphasiology
. 2014
;28
(6
):713
–30
.55.
Aksan
M
. The container metaphor in Turkish expressions of anger
. J Linguist Lit
. 2006
;3
(2
):1
–20
.56.
Baş
M
. The metaphoric conceptualization of emotion through heart idioms in Turkish
. Cognit Semiotic
. 2017
;10
(2
):121
–39
.57.
Joubert
S
, Vallet
GT
, Montembeault
M
, Boukadi
M
, Wilson
MA
, Laforce
RJ
et al. Comprehension of concrete and abstract words in semantic variant primary progressive aphasia and Alzheimer’s disease: a behavioral and neuroimaging study
. Brain Lang
. 2017
;170
:93
–102
.58.
Vaish
A
, Grossmann
T
, Woodward
A
. Not all emotions are created equal: the negativity bias in social-emotional development
. Psychol Bull
. 2008
;134
(3
):383
–403
.59.
Drew
P
, Holt
E
. Figures of speech: figurative expressions and the management of topic transition in conversation
. Lang Soc
. 1998
;27
(4
):495
–522
.60.
Fainsilber
L
, Ortony
A
. Metaphorical uses of language in the expression of emotions
. Metaphor Symbol
. 1987
;2
(4
):239
–50
.© 2023 S. Karger AG, Basel
Copyright / Drug Dosage / Disclaimer
Copyright: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be translated into other languages, reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, microcopying, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Drug Dosage: The authors and the publisher have exerted every effort to ensure that drug selection and dosage set forth in this text are in accord with current recommendations and practice at the time of publication. However, in view of ongoing research, changes in government regulations, and the constant flow of information relating to drug therapy and drug reactions, the reader is urged to check the package insert for each drug for any changes in indications and dosage and for added warnings and precautions. This is particularly important when the recommended agent is a new and/or infrequently employed drug.
Disclaimer: The statements, opinions and data contained in this publication are solely those of the individual authors and contributors and not of the publishers and the editor(s). The appearance of advertisements or/and product references in the publication is not a warranty, endorsement, or approval of the products or services advertised or of their effectiveness, quality or safety. The publisher and the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content or advertisements.
2023
You do not currently have access to this content.
