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Effects of aging and noncanonical form presentation on idiom processing: Evidence from eye tracking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2020

Katja I. Haeuser Open the ORCID record for Katja I. Haeuser [Opens in a new window] ,
Shari Baum  and
Debra Titone
Katja I. Haeuser*
Affiliation:
Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
Shari Baum
Affiliation:
McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Debra Titone
Affiliation:
McGill University, Montreal, Canada
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: khaeuser@coli.uni-saarland.de.
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Abstract

Comprehending idioms (e.g., bite the bullet) requires that people appreciate their figurative meanings while suppressing literal interpretations of the phrase. While much is known about idioms, an open question is how healthy aging and noncanonical form presentation affect idiom comprehension when the task is to read sentences silently for comprehension. Here, younger and older adults read sentences containing idioms or literal phrases, while we monitored their eye movements. Idioms were presented in a canonical or a noncanonical form (e.g., bite the iron bullet). To assess whether people integrate figurative or literal interpretations of idioms, a disambiguating region that was figuratively or literally biased followed the idiom in each sentence. During early stages of reading, older adults showed facilitation for canonical idioms, suggesting a greater sensitivity to stored idiomatic forms. During later stages of reading, older adults showed slower reading times when canonical idioms were biased toward their literal interpretation, suggesting they were more likely to interpret idioms figuratively on the first pass. In contrast, noncanonical form presentation slowed comprehension of figurative meanings comparably in younger and older participants. We conclude that idioms may be more strongly entrenched in older adults, and that noncanonical form presentation slows comprehension of figurative meanings.

Keywords

agingeye trackingidiomssentence processingreading
Type
Original Article
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 101 - 127
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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