When the Idiom Advantage Comes Up Short: Eye-Tracking Canonical and Modified Idioms

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Science
• Language Processing

Background:

• The
• idiom advantage
• suggests familiar idioms are processed faster than literal phrases.
• Research on modified idioms suggests familiarity may aid processing, but the extent is unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if familiar idioms and their modified versions are processed faster than literal phrases using eye-tracking.
• To determine the impact of adjective modification on idiom processing speed and ease.

Main Methods:

• An eye-tracking experiment was conducted.
• Participants read canonical idioms, modified idioms (with 1-2 adjectives), and matched literal phrases.
• Stimuli were preceded by a biasing context to facilitate disambiguation.

Main Results:

• Adjective insertion in idioms led to longer fixation times and more regressions.
• Processing of idiom verbs and final words was unaffected by adjective modification.
• Both canonical and modified idioms were read slower than matched literal phrases.

Conclusions:

• Contrary to the idiom advantage, modified idioms incurred processing costs.
• These costs may stem from the competition between literal and figurative meanings, requiring selection and integration.
• Meaning integration in literal phrases was easier; modifications may increase cognitive load.