Online Metaphor Comprehension in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders: An Eye Tracking Study.
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| Title: | Online Metaphor Comprehension in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders: An Eye Tracking Study. |
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| Authors: | O'Shea, Aimee (AUTHOR), Cersosimo, Rita (AUTHOR), Engelhardt, Paul E. (AUTHOR) |
| Source: | Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders. Jan2026, Vol. 56 Issue 1, p56-70. 15p. |
| Subjects: | Cross-sectional method, Psychiatric treatment, T-test (Statistics), Autism, Eye movement measurements, Phonological awareness, Undergraduates, Internet, Metaphor, Photography, Quantitative research, Psycholinguistics, Communication, Social skills, Analysis of variance, Asperger's syndrome, Reaction time, Language acquisition, Eye movements, Adults |
| Abstract: | The aim of this study was to investigate novel metaphor comprehension in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Previous literature is conflicting about whether individuals with ASD have impairment in this particular type of figurative language. Participants in the study completed a visual world paradigm eye-tracking task, which involved selecting an interpretation of an auditorily presented sentence (i.e. a picture-sentence matching task), where images corresponded to literal and metaphorical interpretations. Thus, the study also investigated online processing, via reaction times and eye movements. Forty adults participated in the study (18 with ASD and 22 typically-developing controls). Each participant completed the AQ questionnaire and had their vocabulary assessed. Results showed that participants with ASD comprehended metaphorical utterances with the same accuracy as controls. However, they had significantly slower reaction times, and specifically, were approximately 800 ms slower. Analysis of eye movements revealed that participants with ASD showed significantly longer fixation times on both the target and distractor image, the latter of which suggests difficulty overcoming the literal interpretation. Consistent with some prior studies, we showed that adults with ASD are not impaired in novel metaphor comprehension, but they were clearly less efficient. Verbal abilities did not significantly relate to performance. Finally, our online processing measure (eye tracking) provided us with insights into the nature of the ASD inefficiency (i.e. a literality bias). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
| Copyright of Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) | |
| Database: | Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection |
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