We investigate three potential mechanisms underlying the deficit in idiom comprehension seen in aphasia: difficulty inhibiting literal meanings, inability to recognize that a figurative interpretation is required, and difficulty processing abstract words and concepts. Unimpaired adults and PWA read high and moderate familiarity idioms either preceded or followed by a figuratively biasing context sentence. They then completed a string-to-word probe selection task, choosing between a figurative target, a literal lure, and unrelated concrete and abstract lures. PWA chose the figurative target more often for more familiar idioms and after figuratively biasing contexts, suggesting that difficulty accessing figurative meanings may be a key contributor to idiom impairment in aphasia. Importantly, PWA chose abstract lures at the same rate as they chose literal lures, suggesting that abstract lures may be considered equally good matches for weak idiomatic representations in PWA, and therefore that idiomatic figurative meanings may be represented similarly to abstract concepts for PWA. These results have implications for models of idiom comprehension in aphasia, as well as the design of future studies of idiom comprehension in PWA.

中文翻译：

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失语症中的习语理解：字面干扰和抽象表征

我们调查了失语症中习语理解缺陷的三种潜在机制：难以抑制字面意义、无法识别需要比喻性解释以及难以处理抽象的单词和概念。未受损的成年人和 PWA 阅读高度和中等熟悉度的习语，无论是在比喻性偏见的上下文句子之前还是之后。然后，他们完成了从字符串到单词的探针选择任务，在具象目标、文字诱饵和不相关的具体和抽象诱饵之间进行选择。PWA 更频繁地为更熟悉的习语选择比喻目标，并且在比喻偏向上下文之后，这表明难以获得比喻意义可能是失语症成语障碍的关键因素。重要的，PWA 选择抽象诱饵的比率与他们选择文字诱饵的比率相同，这表明抽象诱饵可能被认为与 PWA 中的弱惯用表示同样好匹配，因此惯用比喻意义可能类似于 PWA 的抽象概念。这些结果对失语症习语理解模型以及 PWA 习语理解未来研究的设计具有重要意义。