Cheng Lulu, Guan Yingming, Zhang Ting, Zhan Linlin, Liu Yanqin, Wang Peng, Yu Shanshan, Peng Yule
Shanghai Center for Research in English Language Education, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China.
School of Foreign Studies, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, China.
Front Psychol. 2024 Jan 8;14:1254129. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1254129. eCollection 2023.
Metaphor affects how people focus, remember, and process information and significantly influences children's language development. The study explored metaphorical comprehension by Chinese children of different ages (5-8 years). We collected response times and accuracy rates when they processed metaphorical and literal sentences with the graded salience. Linear mixed-effects modeling showed that Chinese children's metaphorical ability improved with age. Subsequent analysis found that the perception period of metaphorical knowledge was at age 5, the development stage of metaphorical knowledge was at age 6 and 7, and the rational decision period of metaphorical ability was at age 8. After 8-year-old, children can invoke the knowledge of the intention schema while activating the source domain, and this knowledge can be automatically and quickly mapped to the target domain. Meanwhile, language development and cognitive processing influenced the metaphorical comprehension of Chinese children, especially children of 8 years of age who had the highest correct rate and the shortest reaction time to process low-saliency metaphorical sentences, while 5-year-old children had the highest accuracy in high-saliency metaphorical sentence and 6-year-old children got the longest reaction time to process sentence in high-saliency metaphor. This study may provide evidence for improving and training metaphor comprehension in children with special needs such as those with an autism spectrum disorder.
隐喻影响人们关注、记忆和处理信息的方式，并对儿童的语言发展产生重大影响。本研究探讨了不同年龄（5 - 8岁）中国儿童的隐喻理解能力。我们收集了他们处理具有不同显著程度的隐喻句和直义句时的反应时间和准确率。线性混合效应模型显示，中国儿童的隐喻能力随年龄增长而提高。后续分析发现，隐喻知识的感知期在5岁，隐喻知识的发展期在6岁和7岁，隐喻能力的理性决策期在8岁。8岁以后，儿童在激活源域的同时能够调用意图图式的知识，并且这种知识能够自动且快速地映射到目标域。同时，语言发展和认知加工影响中国儿童的隐喻理解，尤其是8岁儿童处理低显著程度隐喻句时正确率最高且反应时间最短，而5岁儿童处理高显著程度隐喻句时准确率最高，6岁儿童处理高显著程度隐喻句时反应时间最长。本研究可能为改善和训练有特殊需求儿童（如自闭症谱系障碍儿童）的隐喻理解提供证据。
