Cover not available

Article published In: Bridging the Methodological Divide: Linguistic and psycholinguistic approaches to formulaic language
Edited by Stefanie Wulff and Debra Titone
[The Mental Lexicon 9:3] 2014
► pp. 473–496

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Time-dependent effects of decomposability, familiarity and literal plausibility on idiom meaning activation

A cross-modal priming investigation

 | McGill University
 | University of British Columbia – Okanagan
Published online: 23 January 2015
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.9.3.05tit
We address a core question about idioms relevant to formulaic language generally: are the figurative meanings of idioms directly retrieved or compositionally built? An understanding of this question has been previously obscured by the fact that idioms vary in ways that can affect processing, and also because experimental tasks, which differ across studies, probe different kinds of comprehension processes. We thus investigate how linguistic differences among idioms in semantic decomposability, familiarity, and literal plausibility modulate figurative meaning activation using cross-modal semantic priming, which is ideal for tracking activation of a particular target meaning over time. Across two experiments, we obtained two key findings. First, a comparison of different prime-target delay conditions suggests that figurative meaning activation steadily accrues as the idiom unfolds to 1000 ms later. Second, different linguistic attributes of idioms modulate figurative activation at different time points: increased literal plausibility interferes with idiom priming prior to the offset of the phrase, increased familiarity facilitates idiom priming at phrase offset, and increased semantic decomposability (surprisingly) interferes with idiom priming 1000 ms following phrase offset. These results contradict strong decompositional models of idiom processing and rather suggest that multiple linguistic factors jointly constrain figurative meaning retrieval in a time-dependent fashion.
References (56)
Abel, B. (2003). English idioms in the first language and second language lexicon: A dual representation approach. Second Language Research, 19(4), 329–358. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Arnon, I., & Snider, N. (2010). More than words: Frequency effects for multi-word phrases. Journal of Memory and Language, 62(1), 67–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baayen, R.H., Davidson, D.J., & Bates, D.M. (2008). Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items. Journal of memory and language, 59(4), 390–412. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bannard, C., & Matthews, D. (2008). Stored word sequences in language learning: The effect of familiarity on children’s repetition of four-word combinations. Psychological Science, 19(3), 241–248. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barr, D.J., Levy, R., Scheepers, C., & Tily, H.J. (2013). Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language, 68(3), 255–278. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bélanger, N., Baum, S.R., & Titone, D. (2009). Use of prosodic cues in the production of idiomatic and literal sentences by individuals with right-and left-hemisphere damage. Brain and language, 110(1), 38–42. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bobrow, S.A., & Bell, S.M. (1973). On catching on to idiomatic expressions. Memory and Cognition, 11, 343–346. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bortfeld, H. (2003). Comprehending idioms cross-linguistically. Exp Psychol, 50(3), 217–230. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cacciari, C., & Tabossi, P. (1988). The comprehension of idioms. Journal of Memory and Language, 271, 668–683. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caillies, S. (2009). Description de 300 expressions idiomatiques: Familiarité, connaissance de leur signification, plausibilité littérale, décomposabilité et prédictibilité. = descriptions of french idiomatic expressions: Familiarity, literality, compositionality, predictability, and knowledge of meaning. L’Année Psychologique, 109(3), 463–508. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caillies, S., & Butcher, K. (2007). Processing of idiomatic expressions: Evidence for a new hybrid view. Metaphor & Symbol, 221, 79–108. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caillies, S., & Declercq, C. (2011). Kill the song — steal the show: What does distinguish predicative metaphors from decomposable idioms? Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 401, 205–223. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Oxford, England: M. I. T. Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Colombo, L. (1993). The comprehension of ambiguous idioms in context. In C. Cacciari & 
P. Tabossi (Eds.), Idioms: Processing, structure, and interpretation (pp. 163–200). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1998). Role of context in the comprehension of ambiguous Italian idioms. In 
D. Hillert (Ed.), Syntax and semantics, 31, sentence processing: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 379–404). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cronk, B.C., & Schweigert, W.A. (1992). The comprehension of idioms: The effects of familiarity, literalness, and usage. Applied Psycholinguistics, 131, 131–146. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fraser, B. (1970). Idioms within a transformational grammar. Foundations of language, 61, 22–42.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, R.W., Jr. (1980). Spilling the beans on understanding and memory for idioms in conversation. Memory and Cognition, 81, 149–156. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, R.W., Jr., & Nayak, N.P. (1989). Psycholinguistic studies on the syntactic behavior of idioms. Cognit Psychol, 21(1), 100–138. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, R.W., Jr., Nayak, N.P., Bolton, J.L., & Keppel, M.E. (1989). Speakers’ assumptions about the lexical flexibility of idioms. Memory and Cognition, 17(1), 58–68. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, R.W., Jr., Nayak, N.P., & Cutting, C.B. (1989). How to kick the bucket and not decompose: Analyzability and idiom processing. Journal of Memory and Language, 281, 576–593. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hamblin, J., & Gibbs, R. (1999). Why you can’t kick the bucket as you slowly die: Verbs in idiom comprehension. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 28(1), 25–39. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R., & Culicover, P.W. (2003). The semantic basis of control in English. Language, 79(3), 517–556. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1997). The architecture of the language faculty (No. 28). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Libben, M., & Titone, D. (2008). The multidetermined nature of idiom processing. Memory & Cognition, 361, 1103–1131. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lovseth, K., de la Parra, L., Wagner, M., & Titone, D. (2011). Familiarity and decomposability modulate the prosodic realization of figuratively vs. literally intended idioms during natural speech production. In Proceedings of the Ninth Edition of the International Seminar on Speech Production, Montréal, Canada (pp. 377–384).
Mueller, R.A.G., & Gibbs, R.W. (1987). Processing idioms with multiple meanings. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 161, 63–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nattinger, J.R., & DeCarrico, J.S. (1992). Lexical phrases and language teaching (Vol. 11, pp. 992). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nunberg, G. (1978). The pragmatics of reference. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nunberg, G., Sag, I.A., & Wasow, T. (1994). Idioms. Language, 701, 491–534. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Papagno, C., Lucchelli, F., Muggia, S., & Rizzo, S. (2003). Idiom comprehension in Alzheimer’s disease: The role of the central executive. Brain, 126(Pt 11), 2419–2430. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Papagno, C., Tabossi, P., Colombo, M.R., & Zampetti, P. (2004). Idiom comprehension in aphasic patients. Brain and Language, 89(1), 226–234. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pawley, A., & Syder, F.H. (1983). Two puzzles for linguistic theory: Nativelike selection and nativelike fluency. Language and communication, 1911, 225.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peterson, R.R., Burgess, C., Dell, G.S., & Eberhard, K.M. (2001). Dissociation between syntactic and semantic processing during idiom comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 27(5), 1223–1237. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Popiel, S.J., & McRae, K. (1988). The figurative and literal senses of idioms, of all idioms are not used equally. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 171, 475–487. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schweigert, W.A., & Cronk, B.C. (1993). Ratings of the familiarity of idioms figurative meanings and the likelihood of literal meanings among United-States college-students. Current Psychology-Research & Reviews, 11(4), 325–345. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sinclair, J.M. (1991). Corpus, concordance, collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Siyanova-Chanturia, A., Conklin, K., & Schmitt, N. (2011). Adding more fuel to the fire: An eye-tracking study of idiom processing by native and non-native speakers. Second Language Research, 27(2), 251–272. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Siyanova, A., & Schmitt, N. (2007). Native and nonnative use of multi-word vs. one-word verbs. IRAL-International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 45(2), 119–139. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Swinney, D.A., & Cutler, A. (1979). The access and processing of idiomatic expressions. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 181, 522–534. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tabossi, P., Fanari, R., & Wolf, K. (2008). Processing idiomatic expressions: Effects of semantic compositionality. Journal of Experimental Psychology-Learning Memory and Cognition, 34(2), 313–327. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Titone, D., Columbus, G., Whitford, V., Mercier, J., & Libben, M. (In press). Contrasting Bilingual and Monolingual Idiom Processing. In R.R. Heredia & A.B. Cieślicka (Eds.), Bilingual figurative language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Titone, D., & Connine, C.M. (1994a). Descriptive norms for 171 idiomatic expressions: Familiarity, compositionality, predictability, and literality. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 91, 247–270. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Titone, D.A., & Connine, C.M. (1994b). Comprehension of idiomatic expressions: Effects of predictability and literality. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20(5), 1126. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Titone, D., & Connine, C.M. (1999). On the compositional and noncompositional nature of idiomatic expressions. Journal of Pragmatics, 311, 1655–1674. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Titone, D., Holzman, P.S., & Levy, D.L. (2002). Idiom processing in schizophrenia: Literal implausibility saves the day for idiom priming. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111(2), 313–320. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Titone, D.A., & Connine, C.M. (1994a). Comprehension of idiomatic expressions: Effects of predictability and literality. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20(5), 1126–1138. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tremblay, A., Derwing, B., Libben, G., & Westbury, C. (2011). Processing advantages of lexical bundles: Evidence from self-paced reading and sentence recall tasks. Language Learning, 61(2), 569–613. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Lancker, D., Canter, G.J., & Terbeek, D. (1981). Disambiguation of ditropic sentencesacoustic and phonetic cues. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 24(3), 330–335. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Lancker, D.R., & Kempler, D. (1987). Comprehension of familiar phrases by left- but not by right-hemisphere damaged patients. Brain and Language, 32(2), 265–277. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Lancker Sidtis, D. (2004). When novel sentences spoken or heard for the first time in the history of the universe are not enough: Toward a dual-process model of language. International Journal of Language and Communicative Disorders, 39(1), 1–44. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wray, A. (2012). What do we (think we) know about formulaic language? An evaluation of the current state of play. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 321, 231–254. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2013). Formulaic language. Language Teaching, 46(03), 316–334. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wulff, S. (2008). Rethinking idiomaticity: A usage-based approach. Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (65)

Cited by 65 other publications

Griffen, Nicholas & Ira Noveck
2025. What norming reveals about idioms: Making the case for a presuppositional account. Memory & Cognition DOI logo
Pagliai, Irene
2025. ‘Well, if you want to play with fire, make sure the flames are tamed’: investigating the integration of idiom literal completions across literal and creative contexts. Language and Cognition 17 DOI logo
Socolof, Michaela, Timothy J. O'Donnell & Michael Wagner
2025. The Idiom Processing Advantage is Explained By Surprisal. Cognitive Science 49:7 DOI logo
Valero Fernández, Pilar, Adriana Cruz, Mathis Teucher, Inés Recio Fernández & Óscar Loureda Lamas
2025. Dealing with Idioms: An Eye-Tracking Study of Cognitive Processing on L1, L2 and Heritage Speakers of Spanish. Languages 10:7 ► pp. 153 ff. DOI logo
Yu, Jianyao, Siya Wang, Ping Zhang & Tai’an Chen
2025. The processing of familiar English L2 phrasal verbs in neutral and biased sentence contexts. Frontiers in Psychology 16 DOI logo
Carrol, Gareth & Katrien Segaert
2024. As easy as cake or a piece of pie? Processing idiom variation and the contribution of individual cognitive differences. Memory & Cognition 52:2 ► pp. 334 ff. DOI logo
Chen, Hongjun, Xintong Dou, Yunan Liu, Dawei Hu & Yan Zhao
2024. Idiom Comprehension of Chinese Patients With Aphasia: A Case Study. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics 47:4 ► pp. 571 ff. DOI logo
Gridneva, E. M., N. S. Zdorova, A. A. Ivanenko & M. A. Grabovskaya
2024. The processing of Russian Idioms in Heritage Russian Speakers and L2 Russian Learners. NSU Vestnik. Series: Linguistics and Intercultural Communication 21:4 ► pp. 115 ff. DOI logo
Kyriacou, Marianna & Franziska Köder
2024. Not Batting an Eye: Figurative Meanings of L2 Idioms Do Not Interfere with Literal Uses. Languages 9:1 ► pp. 32 ff. DOI logo
Pavlina, Svetlana Yu.
2024. A cross-cultural perspective on the comprehension of novel and conventional idiomatic expressions. Intercultural Pragmatics 21:1 ► pp. 33 ff. DOI logo
Rodríguez-Muñoz, Francisco J.
2024. The pedagogical potential of speech-language therapy materials for the teaching of idiomatic expressions in a foreign language. Applied Linguistics Review 15:1 ► pp. 241 ff. DOI logo
Senaldi, Marco S. G. & Debra Titone
2024. Idiom meaning selection following a prior context: eye movement evidence of L1 direct retrieval and L2 compositional assembly. Discourse Processes 61:1-2 ► pp. 21 ff. DOI logo
Arnon, Tamar & Michal Lavidor
2023. Cognitive control in processing ambiguous idioms: evidence from a self-paced reading study. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 52:1 ► pp. 261 ff. DOI logo
Hubbard, Ryan, Nyssa Bulkes & Vicky Tzuyin Lai
2023. Predictability and decomposability separately contribute to compositional processing of idiomatic language. Psychophysiology 60:8 DOI logo
Lada, Anastasia, Philippe Paquier, Christina Manouilidou & Stefanie Keulen
2023. A systematic review: Idiom comprehension in aphasia: The effects of stimuli and task type. Journal of Neurolinguistics 65 ► pp. 101115 ff. DOI logo
Morid, Mahsa & Laura Sabourin
2023. Role of Affective Factors and Concreteness on the Processing of Idioms. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 52:6 ► pp. 2321 ff. DOI logo
Reimer, Laura & Eva Smolka
2023. The wrong horse was bet on: the effects of argument structure versus argument adjacency on the processing of idiomatic sentences. Frontiers in Psychology 14 DOI logo
Costa, Ana Santos, Montserrat Comesaña & Ana Paula Soares
2022. PHOR-in-One: A multilingual lexical database with PHonological, ORthographic and PHonographic word similarity estimates in four languages. Behavior Research Methods 55:7 ► pp. 3699 ff. DOI logo
Cucchiarini, Catia, Ferdy Hubers & Helmer Strik
2022. Learning L2 idioms in a CALL environment: the role of practice intensity, modality, and idiom properties. Computer Assisted Language Learning 35:4 ► pp. 863 ff. DOI logo
Hubers, Ferdy, Catia Cucchiarini & Nicoline van der Sijs
2022. Knowledge of idiomatic expressions in the native language: Do emigrants lose their touch?. Lingua 271 ► pp. 103242 ff. DOI logo
Mirgalimova, Liliia Marselevna , Elena Fridrikhovna Arsenteva & Elena Aleksandrovna Nikulina
2022. Deviation of Phraseological Unit Semantic Stability as a Means of Phraseological Transformation. International Journal of Criminology and Sociology 9 ► pp. 2638 ff. DOI logo
Muraki, Emiko J., Summer Abdalla, Marc Brysbaert & Penny M. Pexman
2022. Concreteness ratings for 62,000 English multiword expressions. Behavior Research Methods 55:5 ► pp. 2522 ff. DOI logo
Pulido, Manuel F.
2022. Why are multiword units hard to acquire for late L2 learners? Insights from cognitive science on adult learning, processing, and retrieval. Linguistics Vanguard 8:1 ► pp. 237 ff. DOI logo
Senaldi, Marco S. G. & Debra A. Titone
2022. Less Direct, More Analytical: Eye-Movement Measures of L2 Idiom Reading. Languages 7:2 ► pp. 91 ff. DOI logo
Senaldi, Marco S. G., Junyan Wei, Jason W. Gullifer & Debra Titone
2022. Scratching your tête over language-switched idioms: Evidence from eye-movement measures of reading. Memory & Cognition 50:6 ► pp. 1230 ff. DOI logo
Carrol, Gareth
2021. Psycholinguistic approaches to figuration. In Figurative Language - Intersubjectivity and Usage [Figurative Thought and Language, 11], ► pp. 307 ff. DOI logo
Cieślicka, Anna B., Roberto R. Heredia & Ariana C. García
2021. The (re)activation of idiomatic expressions (La (re)activación de expresiones idiomáticas). Studies in Psychology 42:2 ► pp. 334 ff. DOI logo
Haeuser, Katja I., Shari Baum & Debra Titone
2021. Effects of aging and noncanonical form presentation on idiom processing: Evidence from eye tracking. Applied Psycholinguistics 42:1 ► pp. 101 ff. DOI logo
Lemghari, El Mustapha
2021. Constructing a Broad Model for Proverb Understanding. Metaphor and Symbol 36:4 ► pp. 265 ff. DOI logo
Lemghari, El Mustapha
2022. On the Role of Source and Target Words’ Meanings in Metaphorical Conceptualizations. Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 67:1 ► pp. 73 ff. DOI logo
Sandmann, Matthias, Sabine Weiss & Horst Mueller
2021. How Idioms Are Recognized when Individuals Are “Thrown Off the Track”, “Off the Rack” or “Off the Path”: A Decision Time Experiment in Healthy Volunteers. Metaphor and Symbol 36:3 ► pp. 166 ff. DOI logo
Wang, Xiaolu, Yizhen Wang, Wanning Tian, Wei Zheng & Xiaoli Chen
2021. The Roles of Familiarity and Context in Processing Chinese Xiehouyu: An ERP Study. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 50:4 ► pp. 901 ff. DOI logo
Carrol, Gareth & Kathy Conklin
2020. Is All Formulaic Language Created Equal? Unpacking the Processing Advantage for Different Types of Formulaic Sequences. Language and Speech 63:1 ► pp. 95 ff. DOI logo
Carrol, Gareth & Jeannette Littlemore
2020. Resolving Figurative Expressions During Reading: The Role of Familiarity, Transparency, and Context. Discourse Processes 57:7 ► pp. 609 ff. DOI logo
Kyriacou, Marianna, Kathy Conklin & Dominic Thompson
2020. Passivizability of Idioms: Has the Wrong Tree Been Barked Up?. Language and Speech 63:2 ► pp. 404 ff. DOI logo
Kyriacou, Marianna, Kathy Conklin & Dominic Thompson
2021. When the Idiom Advantage Comes Up Short: Eye-Tracking Canonical and Modified Idioms. Frontiers in Psychology 12 DOI logo
Mancuso, Azzurra, Annibale Elia, Alessandro Laudanna & Simonetta Vietri
2020. The Role of Syntactic Variability and Literal Interpretation Plausibility in Idiom Comprehension. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 49:1 ► pp. 99 ff. DOI logo
Pulido, Manuel F. & Paola E. Dussias
2020. Desirable difficulties while learning collocations in a second language: Conditions that induce L1 interference improve learning. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 23:3 ► pp. 652 ff. DOI logo
van Ginkel, Wendy & Ton Dijkstra
2020. The tug of war between an idiom's figurative and literal meanings: Evidence from native and bilingual speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 23:1 ► pp. 131 ff. DOI logo
Van Lancker Sidtis, Diana
2020. Familiar phrases in language competence. In Grammar and Cognition [Human Cognitive Processing, 70], ► pp. 29 ff. DOI logo
Grindrod, Christopher M. & Adina L. Raizen
2019. Age-related changes in processing speed modulate context use during idiomatic ambiguity resolution. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition 26:6 ► pp. 842 ff. DOI logo
Hubers, Ferdy, Catia Cucchiarini, Helmer Strik & Ton Dijkstra
2019. Normative Data of Dutch Idiomatic Expressions: Subjective Judgments You Can Bank on. Frontiers in Psychology 10 DOI logo
Hubers, Ferdy, Catia Cucchiarini, Helmer Strik & Ton Dijkstra
2022. Individual word activation and word frequency effects during the processing of opaque idiomatic expressions. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 75:6 ► pp. 1004 ff. DOI logo
Koleva, Kremena, Mark Mon-Williams & Ekaterini Klepousniotou
2019. Right hemisphere involvement for pun processing – Effects of idiom decomposition. Journal of Neurolinguistics 51 ► pp. 165 ff. DOI logo
Sprenger, Simone A., Amélie la Roi & Jacolien van Rij
2019. The Development of Idiom Knowledge Across the Lifespan. Frontiers in Communication 4 DOI logo
Tiv, Mehrgol, Laura Gonnerman, Veronica Whitford, Deanna Friesen, Debra Jared & Debra Titone
2019. Figuring Out How Verb-Particle Constructions Are Understood During L1 and L2 Reading. Frontiers in Psychology 10 DOI logo
Vulchanova, Mila, Evelyn Milburn, Valentin Vulchanov & Giosuè Baggio
2019. Boon or Burden? The Role of Compositional Meaning in Figurative Language Processing and Acquisition. Journal of Logic, Language and Information 28:2 ► pp. 359 ff. DOI logo
Bizzoni, Yuri, Marco S. G. Senaldi & Alessandro Lenci
2018. Finding the Neural Net: Deep-learning Idiom Type Identification from Distributional Vectors. Italian Journal of Computational Linguistics 4:1 ► pp. 28 ff. DOI logo
Findlay, Holly & Gareth Carrol
2018. Contributions of semantic richness to the processing of idioms. The Mental Lexicon 13:3 ► pp. 311 ff. DOI logo
LÓPEZ, BELEM G. & JYOTSNA VAID
2018. FácilorA piece of cake: Does variability in bilingual language brokering experience affect idiom comprehension?. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 21:2 ► pp. 340 ff. DOI logo
Milburn, Evelyn, Tessa Warren & Michael Walsh Dickey
2018. Idiom comprehension in aphasia: Literal interference and abstract representation. Journal of Neurolinguistics 47 ► pp. 16 ff. DOI logo
Bulkes, Nyssa Z. & Darren Tanner
2017. “Going to town”: Large-scale norming and statistical analysis of 870 American English idioms. Behavior Research Methods 49:2 ► pp. 772 ff. DOI logo
Cieślicka, Anna B.
2017. Bilingual Figurative Language Processing. In Psychology of Bilingualism, ► pp. 75 ff. DOI logo
Leivada, Evelina
2017. Τhe primitives of the lexicon: Insights from aspect in idioms. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 2:1 DOI logo
Sela, Tal, Meir-Simchah Panzer & Michal Lavidor
2017. Divergent and convergent hemispheric processes in idiom comprehension: The role of idioms predictability. Journal of Neurolinguistics 44 ► pp. 134 ff. DOI logo
Siyanova-Chanturia, Anna, Kathy Conklin, Sendy Caffarra, Edith Kaan & Walter J.B. van Heuven
2017. Representation and processing of multi-word expressions in the brain. Brain and Language 175 ► pp. 111 ff. DOI logo
Wittenberg, Eva & Roger Levy
2017. If you want a quick kiss, make it count: How choice of syntactic construction affects event construal. Journal of Memory and Language 94 ► pp. 254 ff. DOI logo
Beck, Sara D. & Andrea Weber
2016. Bilingual and Monolingual Idiom Processing Is Cut from the Same Cloth: The Role of the L1 in Literal and Figurative Meaning Activation. Frontiers in Psychology 7 DOI logo
Beck, Sara D. & Andrea Weber
2020. Context and Literality in Idiom Processing: Evidence from Self-Paced Reading. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 49:5 ► pp. 837 ff. DOI logo
Beck, Sara D. & Andrea Weber
2021. Phrasal Learning Is a Horse Apiece: No Recognition Memory Advantages for Idioms in L1 and L2 Adult Learners. Frontiers in Psychology 12 DOI logo
Häuser, Katja I., Debra A. Titone & Shari R. Baum
2016. The role of the ventro-lateral prefrontal cortex in idiom comprehension: An rTMS study. Neuropsychologia 91 ► pp. 360 ff. DOI logo
Mitchell, Rachel L.C., Kleio Vidaki & Michal Lavidor
2016. The role of left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in semantic processing: A transcranial direct current stimulation study. Neuropsychologia 91 ► pp. 480 ff. DOI logo
Titone, Debra, Veronica Whitford, Agnieszka Lijewska & Inbal Itzhak
2016. Chapter 1. Bilingualism, executive control, and eye movement measures of reading. In Cognitive Control and Consequences of Multilingualism [Bilingual Processing and Acquisition, 2], ► pp. 11 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2020. Dualistic approaches to language and cognition. In Grammar and Cognition [Human Cognitive Processing, 70], ► pp. 27 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. References. In Foundations of Familiar Language, ► pp. 386 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue