Mentalising has long been suggested to play an important role in irony interpretation. We hypothesised that another important cognitive underpinning of irony interpretation is likely to be children's capacity for mental set switching -- the ability to switch flexibly between different approaches to the same task. We experimentally manipulated…

The dissertation presents a theory of semantics and pragmatics for both language and vision. I focus on sentences including proper names, descriptions, and attitude report verbs, and on the Necker cube. I propose the Open Instruction Theory (OIT), according to which the linguistic meaning of a sentence and the semantic contribution of visual…

A total of 411 elementary school children seven to twelve years old read short prose passages and selected the most appropriate continuation sentence from four alternatives. The completion sentences were constructed so that the correct (target) response involved either an explicit (simile) or an implicit (metaphor) metaphorical comparison. It was…

In the essays contained in this volume, philosophers, psychologists, linguists, and educators raise questions about the viability of the traditional distinction between the literal and the metaphorical. The essays reflect important parallel developments in the fields represented but also illustrate a convergence of approaches to a common problem…

Examines the relations among general language competency factors such as word knowledge, comprehension, and paradigmatic/syntagmatic reasoning, and college developmental readers' ability to interpret two text formats designed to elicit either a literal or figurative interpretation. (DF)

Reports on a study designed to: (1) produce a multiple-choice test which would measure children's comprehension of figurative language, and (2) obtain information about the development of figurative language comprehension in children. (Author/AM)

A collection of research materials on sign language and primatology is presented here. The essays attempt to show that: sign language is a legitimate language that can be learned not only by humans but by nonhuman primates as well, and nonhuman primates have the capability to acquire a human language using a different mode. The following…