Petit Nicolas, Bambini Valentina, Bischetti Luca, Prado Jérôme, Noveck Ira
Hospital Le Vinatier Psychiatrie Universitaire.
Department of Humanities and Life Sciences, Laboratory of Neurolinguistics and Experimental Pragmatics, University School for Advanced Studies IUSS.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2025 Mar;51(3):460-477. doi: 10.1037/xlm0001381. Epub 2024 Sep 12.
Prior research has shown that school-aged children's metaphor comprehension becomes adultlike progressively. This has given rise to claims that the development of metaphor comprehension is due to children's evolving abilities with respect to theory of mind (ToM) or to formal language. The present work investigates the extent to which children's growing sophistication with metaphor is attributable to each of these. Experiment 1 validates a newly constructed tablet task-with two groups of children whose mean ages were approximately 7 and 10 ( = 89)-in which participants (a) listen to vignettes that conclude with either a metaphoric or a synonymic (control) reference and then (b) choose pictures (while latencies are recorded) that indicate whether the children understand the reference as intended. The outcomes from Experiment 1 confirm prior results: Accurate responding in the wake of a metaphoric reference increases with age; meanwhile, correct metaphoric responses take longer than synonymic ones. Experiment 2 tests a more expansive range of 6- to 11-year-olds ( = 248) and a wider array of tasks, including two clinical tasks measuring ToM and formal language skills which we use as cognitive predictors of metaphor accuracy and response times. Results show that ToM is a reliable predictor of successful performance on the metaphor task among younger children, before attenuating with age; in contrast, formal language is a predictor of metaphor comprehension that strengthens with age and is maximal in older children. This work underlines the importance of considering developmental perspectives when investigating the cognitive bases of metaphor skills. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
先前的研究表明，学龄儿童的隐喻理解能力会逐渐发展得像成年人一样。这引发了一些观点，认为隐喻理解能力的发展归因于儿童在心理理论（ToM）或形式语言方面不断发展的能力。本研究探讨了儿童在隐喻方面日益复杂的能力在多大程度上可归因于上述每一个因素。实验1验证了一项新构建的平板电脑任务，该任务针对两组平均年龄约为7岁和10岁（ = 89）的儿童，参与者（a）听取以隐喻或同义（对照）表述结尾的短文，然后（b）选择图片（同时记录反应时间），以表明儿童是否按预期理解了表述。实验1的结果证实了先前的研究结果：隐喻表述后准确反应的能力随年龄增长而提高；同时，正确的隐喻反应比同义反应花费的时间更长。实验2测试了年龄范围更广的6至11岁儿童（ = 248）以及更广泛的任务，包括两项测量ToM和形式语言技能的临床任务，我们将其用作隐喻准确性和反应时间的认知预测指标。结果表明，ToM是年幼儿童在隐喻任务中成功表现的可靠预测指标，但随着年龄增长其作用会减弱；相比之下，形式语言是隐喻理解的一个预测指标，它随着年龄增长而增强，在年龄较大的儿童中达到最大值。这项研究强调了在研究隐喻技能的认知基础时考虑发展视角的重要性。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2025美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
