Pragmatics and theory of mind in older adults’ humor comprehension

Bischetti, Luca; Ceccato, Irene; Lecce, Serena; Cavallini, Elena; Bambini, Valentina

doi:10.1007/s12144-019-00295-w

Cited by 38 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 92 publications

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“…When humour comprehension is jointly regressed on the three domains, the independent contribution of executive functions and ToM is reduced, and the predominant role of pragmatic abilities emerges. This is in line with the findings reported by Bischetti et al (2019), who, using the PMJ task in a sample of older adults, observed a general link with pragmatic skills, while the role of ToM was restricted to mental jokes only.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…In addition to these three composite scores, we also computed a restricted Pragmatic Comprehension score (Pragmatic Comprehension-R), excluding the Humour task and averaging the remaining proportions scores, that is, Narratives, Figurative Language 1, and Figurative Language 2 (score range = 0-1). This was done following Bischetti et al (2019) in order to obtain a measure of receptive pragmatic skills free of humour skills and to avoid spurious associations between pragmatic assessment scores and humour scores.…”

Section: Pragmatic and Other Linguistic Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Humour comprehension and appreciation were assessed with the PMJ task (Bischetti et al 2019). Constructed in line with existing humour tasks (Arcara and Bambini 2016), items include short stories with two contextlines, which introduce a situation and a dialogical turn between two fictive characters, followed by three possi-ble endings (humorous, non-humorous, and unrelated).…”

Section: Phonological and Mental Jokes (Pmj) Task: Humour Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To pursue these aims, we designed a cross-sectional study enrolling non-demented patients with ALS and healthy controls. All participants were administered a humour task recently developed for the ageing population, namely the Phonological and Mental Jokes (PMJ) task (Bischetti et al 2019). This task measures both comprehension (through multiple choice) and appreciation (through a funniness rating) of different types of jokes, specifically those based on sound aspects (phonological jokes) and on mentalistic aspects (mental jokes).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, we could not make precise predictions with respect to the appreciation of jokes in ALS. However, based on the previous findings that typical participants tend to prefer more complex and 'mental' jokes over other types (Bischetti et al 2019;Samson 2012), we hypothesized that the type of joke, rather than the clinical condition, could affect appreciation ratings.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Beyond the motor account of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: Verbal humour and its relationship with the cognitive and pragmatic profile

Bambini

Bischetti

Bonomi

et al. 2020

Intl J Lang & Comm Disor

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Background Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) was traditionally described as a disease restricted to the motor system. However, recent findings suggested that it also affects cognition, especially executive functions, social cognition, language and pragmatics. A relevant issue in current research is thus the description of the cognitive phenotype of ALS and the identification of the most vulnerable aspects. Aims The focus was on a communicative phenomenon placed at the crossroads of pragmatic and other cognitive domains, namely humour, which till now has been poorly explored in ALS. The first aim was to investigate whether ALS is associated with impairments in understanding and appreciating jokes. The second aim was to explore the predictors of humour comprehension and appreciation in patients, to confirm the involvement of pragmatic skills and to explore the role of other cognitive and clinical aspects. Methods & Procedures A total of 30 non‐demented patients with ALS and 27 controls were assessed with a task of verbal humour comprehension and appreciation, including two types of jokes: phonological and mental. We also administered a battery of pragmatic and other language tasks, and cognitive and socio‐cognitive tasks. Mixed‐effects models were used to test differences in the humour task between the two groups. Multiple regressions determined the best predictors of humour comprehension and appreciation in patients. Outcomes & Results Patients obtained lower comprehension accuracy scores than controls in the humour task, independently of the type of joke. Conversely, patients and controls did not differ in joke appreciation and both rated mental jokes as funnier than the phonological ones. Patients’ comprehension accuracy was predicted by pragmatic skills and ALS severity, whereas appreciation was predicted by several clinical variables and, to a smaller extent, by language skills. Conclusions & Implications The findings suggest that humour is a very vulnerable aspect in ALS, and that impairment in humour comprehension might be part of the larger cognitive impairment, being linked to pragmatic impairment. Clinical variables were also important, especially in relation to humour appreciation. More generally, these data speak in favour of pragmatics as a relevant aspect to sketch the cognitive phenotype of ALS. On the practical level, these findings point to the need of supporting communication at large, not only motor‐related aspects such as dysarthria but also social–pragmatic aspects such as understanding jokes, to increase well‐being in ALS.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Pragmatic and Other Linguistic Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Phonological and Mental Jokes (Pmj) Task: Humour Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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