ABSTRACT We investigated what strategies underlie figurative language processing in two groups of participants distinguished by the presence of a developmental deficit, highly-verbal participants with autism, and control participants without autism in two age ranges each. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder are characterised by impaired social interaction and communication. Even at the high end of the spectrum, where structural language is adequate, difficulties in comprehending non-literal aspects of language are widely attested. The exact causes of these problems are, however, still open to debate. In an interactive sentence-picture matching task participants selected the most suitable image representation of a non-literal figurative expression that matched the target meaning, while their eye-movements and hand movements were being tracked. Our results suggest that individuals with ASD have different processing patterns than typically developing peers when interpreting figurative language, even when they provide the correct answers. Both children with and without autism, and participants with autism display greater uncertainty and competition between alternatives when providing the answer, often reflected in also considering the literal interpretation of the expression against its target figurative meaning. We provide evidence that expression transparency and decomposability play a central role in figurative language processing across all groups.

中文翻译：

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语言处理的凝视和运动痕迹：来自自闭症谱系障碍与典型对照的比较的证据

摘要 我们调查了两组参与者的比喻语言处理的基础，这些参与者以存在发育缺陷为特征，患有自闭症的高度语言参与者，以及两个年龄范围内没有自闭症的对照参与者。患有自闭症谱系障碍的个体的特征是社交互动和交流受损。即使在结构语言足够的高端，理解语言的非文字方面的困难也被广泛证明。然而，这些问题的确切原因仍有待商榷。在交互式句子-图片匹配任务中，参与者选择最合适的非文字比喻表达与目标含义匹配的图像表示，同时跟踪他们的眼球运动和手部运动。我们的结果表明，在解释比喻语言时，患有 ASD 的人与典型的发展中的同龄人相比，即使他们提供了正确的答案，他们的处理模式也不同。自闭症儿童和非自闭症儿童以及患有自闭症的参与者在提供答案时都表现出更大的不确定性和备选方案之间的竞争，这通常反映在考虑对表达的字面解释与其目标比喻意义相反。我们提供的证据表明，表达透明度和可分解性在所有群体的比喻语言处理中都发挥着核心作用。自闭症参与者在提供答案时表现出更大的不确定性和备选方案之间的竞争，这通常反映在考虑对表达的字面解释与其目标比喻意义相悖。我们提供的证据表明，表达透明度和可分解性在所有群体的比喻语言处理中都发挥着核心作用。自闭症参与者在提供答案时表现出更大的不确定性和备选方案之间的竞争，这通常反映在考虑对表达的字面解释与其目标比喻意义相悖。我们提供的证据表明，表达透明度和可分解性在所有群体的比喻语言处理中都发挥着核心作用。