Cheng Lulu, Wang Xiaoxiao, Mao Haoran, Liu Yanqin, Yuan Wenting, Wang Peng, Hou Na, Peng Yule
School of Foreign Studies, China University of Petroleum (East China), Huangdao District, West Changjiang Road, QingdaoQingdao, 266580, No. 66, China.
Shanghai Center for Research in English Language Education, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2025 Jun 25. doi: 10.1007/s10803-025-06915-8.
This study, grounded in the Graded Salience Hypothesis (GSH), utilizes Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) to explore metaphor processing mechanisms in 24 Chinese children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) aged 5-12 years, compared with 37 age-matched typically developing (TD) peers. Employing a 2 (Group: ASD vs. TD) × 2 (Sentence Type: Metaphor vs. Literal) × 2 (Salience: High vs. Low) factorial design, we examined neural responses to 48 validated Chinese sentences (balanced for high/low-salience metaphor-literal sentence contrasts) while controlling lexical complexity and syntactic structure. Through linear mixed-effects modeling, the study reveals three key findings: (1) ASD children exhibited reduced P200 amplitudes (150-250 ms) for metaphors compared to literal sentences, indicating impaired early salience-driven attention; (2) Attenuated N400 responses (300-500 ms) to both sentence types in ASD versus TD groups, reflecting context-independent semantic integration deficits; (3) No group differences in Late Positive Component (LPC) (600-1000 ms), suggesting comparable late-stage pragmatic evaluation. These results provide the first neurophysiological evidence for GSH in ASD, demonstrating that salience gradients critically modulate early metaphor processing stages. The findings highlight developmental divergence in ASD children's reliance on salience-based prioritization, offering mechanistic insights for designing metaphor comprehension interventions tailored to salience hierarchies.
本研究以分级显著性假说（GSH）为基础，利用事件相关电位（ERP），对24名年龄在5至12岁的中国自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童与37名年龄匹配的发育正常（TD）同龄人进行比较，以探索隐喻加工机制。采用2（组别：ASD组与TD组）×2（句子类型：隐喻句与直述句）×2（显著性：高显著性与低显著性）析因设计，在控制词汇复杂性和句法结构的同时，我们检测了对48个经过验证的中文句子（高/低显著性隐喻-直述句对比平衡）的神经反应。通过线性混合效应模型，该研究揭示了三个关键发现：（1）与直述句相比，ASD儿童对隐喻句的P200波幅（150 - 250毫秒）降低，表明早期显著性驱动的注意力受损；（2）ASD组与TD组对两种句子类型的N400反应（300 - 500毫秒）均减弱，反映出与语境无关的语义整合缺陷；（3）晚期正成分（LPC）（600 - 1000毫秒）无组间差异，表明后期语用评估相当。这些结果为GSH在ASD中的作用提供了首个神经生理学证据，表明显著性梯度对隐喻加工的早期阶段具有关键调节作用。研究结果突出了ASD儿童在基于显著性的优先级依赖方面的发育差异，为设计针对显著性层次结构的隐喻理解干预措施提供了机制性见解。
