Basic composition and enriched integration in idiom processing: An EEG study.

Abstract

We investigated the extent to which the literal meanings of the words forming literally-plausible idioms (e.g., break the ice) are semantically composed, and how the idiomatic meaning is integrated in the unfolding sentence representation. Participants read ambiguous idiom strings embedded in highly predictable, literal and idiomatic contexts, while their EEG was recorded. Control sentences only contained the idiom-final word whose cloze values were as high as in literal and idiomatic contexts. Event Related Potentials data showed that differences in the amplitude of a Frontal positivity (PNP) emerged at the beginning and at the end of the idiom strings, with the Idiomatic context condition associated with more positive voltages. The Time-Frequency analysis of the EEG showed an increase in power of the middle gamma frequency band only in the Literal context condition. These findings suggest that sentence revision mechanisms, associated with the frontal PNP, are involved in idiom meaning integration, and that the literal semantic composition of the idiomatic constituents, associated with changes in gamma frequency, is not carried out after idiom recognition

Cognitive and Personality Components Underlying Spoken Idiom Comprehension in Context. An Exploratory Study

“…This is particularly important to idioms since, as we mentioned, processing idioms may be more engaging for the cognitive system than it may appear given the rapidity with which familiar idioms are generally understood. In fact, it has been extensively shown that momentary activation of at least part of the literal meaning of the idiom composing words and retrieval, after idiom identification, of the idiom meaning from semantic memory are both necessary to idiom comprehension (Cacciari et al, 2007 ; Fanari et al, 2010 ; Vespignani et al, 2010 ; Holsinger and Kaiser, 2013 ; Canal et al, 2017 ). How many of the words composing the idiom string are literally processed depends on factors such as idiom predictability, familiarity and contextual information.…”

“…Since retrieving the idiomatic meaning takes less time than computing the compositional meaning of the string, the idiom meaning becomes available before the literal meaning. In more recent years, evidence against this “Lexical-look up” approach has accumulated (e.g., Cacciari and Tabossi, 1988 ; Titone and Connine, 1994 ; Peterson et al, 2001 ; Tabossi et al, 2005 ; Sprenger et al, 2006 ; Cacciari et al, 2007 ; Libben and Titone, 2008 ; Fanari et al, 2010 ; Vespignani et al, 2010 ; Holsinger and Kaiser, 2013 ; Canal et al, 2017 ) leading to “Non-Lexical Hybrid” models. The Configuration Hypothesis (CH, Cacciari and Tabossi, 1988 ; Tabossi and Zardon, 1993 ; Vespignani et al, 2010 ; Cacciari and Corradini, 2015 ) provided an influential model of how spoken idiom comprehension unfolds in time.…”

“…Interestingly, the idiom processing time advantage found with a variety of behavioral tasks (e.g., Swinney and Cutler, 1979 ; Cacciari et al, 2007 ; Vespignani et al, 2010 ; Siyanova-Chanturia et al, 2011 ; Canal et al, 2017 ) is accompanied by brain-imaging evidence suggesting a more complex picture. These studies consistently reported a stronger and more widespread activation of the language network for idioms, in particular in the Inferior Frontal and Middle Temporal Gyri (e.g., Zempleni et al, 2007 ; Mashal et al, 2008 ; Romero Lauro et al, 2008 ; Boulenger et al, 2009 , 2012 ) rather inconsistent with the idea that the comprehension of ready-to-go idiomatic meanings is relatively undemanding to the processing system 1 .…”

The power of neural oscillations to inform sentence comprehension: A linguistic perspective

“…language. Canal et al (2017) and Rommers et al (2013) found increased gamma power in literal compared to idiomatic contexts. Given the proposed role of gamma for semantic integration (e.g., Hagoort et al, 2004), this might reflect the fact that semantic integration is not required for processing idiomatic expressions to the same degree as it is when processing literal expressions.…”

Boon or Burden? The Role of Compositional Meaning in Figurative Language Processing and Acquisition

“…The process of deriving a figurative interpretation of the sentence will however be reflected in the post-N400 window, either by the P600 or by a sustained anterior negativity (SAN) in about the same time range (~ 500-800 ms). P600 effects have been found with metaphor (Bambini et al 2016a), metonymy (Nieuwland and Van Berkum 2005;Schumacher 2011Schumacher , 2014, and idioms (Canal et al 2017). While the standard interpretation of the P600 as just a marker of syntactic processing has been abandoned, it is quite possible that syntax still plays an indirect role here.…”