Mary Beth Neff

• Neff, Mary Beth & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2025). Decoupling literalist behavior from children’s early metaphor comprehension abilities. Language Development Research. 5(2), s. 130–171. doi: 10.34842/LDR2025-819. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Children’s literalist responses to metaphor comprehension tasks are often taken to indicate deficient metaphor comprehension. We aimed to decouple this assumed (literalist) performance–(metaphor) competence link and investigate whether children’s observed literalism is best explained by an early difficulty with metaphor. We assessed 3- to 7-year-olds’ metaphor comprehension abilities using different novel functional, attributional, and psychological metaphors in a between-subjects design. We found that when not provided with literal options, children could derive metaphorical interpretations successfully. This was further supported by longer reaction times for metaphorical over literal interpretations. However, when literal options were available, even adults predominantly chose them over metaphorical interpretations. These findings challenge the view that children’s literalism stems solely from difficulty with metaphor and urge researchers to more clearly distinguish studies assessing sensitivity to metaphorical meaning from those investigating the ability to prioritize a metaphorical interpretation over a literal one.

• Neff, Mary Beth & Martin, Alia (2022). Do face-to-face interactions support 6-month-olds' understanding of the communicative function of speech? Infancy. ISSN 1525-0008. doi: 10.1111/infa.12507. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Infants by 6 months recognize that speech communicates information between third parties. We investigated whether 6-month-olds always expect speech to communicate or whether they also consider social features of communication, like how interlocutors engage with one another. A small sample of infants watched an actor (the Speaker) choose one of two objects to play with (the target). When the Speaker could no longer reach her target object, she turned to a new actor (the Listener) and said a nonsense word. During speech, the actors were either face-to-face, the Speaker was facing away from the Listener, or the reverse. When the actors had been face-to-face, infants looked longer when the Listener selected the non-target object compared to the target. Infants looked equally regardless of what the Listener chose when either actor had been disengaged. Area-of-interest gaze coding suggests that infants were similarly interested in the interaction across conditions, but their pattern of attention to Speaker and Listener differed when the Listener was disengaged during speech. Although these experiments should be replicated with a larger sample, the findings provide initial evidence that 6-month-olds do not expect speech alone to communicate, but also attend to the social context in which speech is produced.

• Hilton, Courtney; Moser, Cody; Bertolo, Mila; Lee-Rubin, Harry; Amir, Dorsa & Bainbridge, Constance [Vis alle 43 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2022). Acoustic regularities in infant-directed speech and song across cultures. Nature Human Behaviour. doi: 10.1038/s41562-022-01410-x. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nguyen, Tram Thi Bao; Balanovic, Jovana; Aley, Joanne & Neff, Mary Beth (2022). (Preprint) Human dimensions of Predator Free 2050: A literature overview of social and behavioral research. SocArXiv. doi: 10.31235/osf.io/f98m3. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

Se alle arbeider i NVA

• Neff, Mary Beth; Ganea, Patricia & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2024). "Towers can't wear clothes": What happens when children's reality and literal biases clash? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Neff, Mary Beth; Ganea, Patricia & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2024). "Towers can't wear clothes": What happens when children's reality and literal biases clash? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Neff, Mary Elizabeth; Bochynska, Agata & Force, Pilot Reporting Task (2024). To pilot or not to pilot, that's not the question: developing a template for transparent pilot study reporting. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Neff, Mary Beth & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2023). Understanding the relationship between children's literalist behavior and metaphor comprehension development. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Neff, Mary Beth & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2023). Does children's early literalist behavior stem from difficulties with metaphor comprehension? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Neff, Mary Beth & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2023). Uncoupling children's literal bias from their metaphor comprehension abilities. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Neff, Mary Beth & Bochynska, Agata (2023). Unconference on (Transparent) Piloting: current practices and ways forward. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Neff, Mary Beth; Ganea, Patricia & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2023). Do children interpret metaphors literally because they are fantastical thinkers? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Neff, Mary Beth & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2023). Unpacking the literal bias in children’s metaphor comprehension development. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Neff, Mary Beth & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2022). Exploring the literal bias in children's metaphor comprehension development. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Neff, Mary Beth & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2022). Exploring the literal bias in children's metaphor comprehension development. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Neff, Mary Beth & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2022). Exploring the literal bias in children's metaphor comprehension development. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Neff, Mary Beth & Falkum, Ingrid Lossius (2022). Exploring the literal bias in children's metaphor comprehension development. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Neff, Mary Beth (2022). Uncoupling children's literal bias from their metaphor comprehension abilities. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Neff, Mary Beth (2025). Challenging the Metaphor Deficit: Unpacking Children's 'Literally Biased' Communicative Development. Universitetet i Oslo. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This thesis explored children’s literalist preferences in the context of their metaphor comprehension development. I aimed to answer the following key questions: Does a preference for literal interpretations signal a metaphor deficit (Article I), or is it part of a broader cognitive development where children gradually refine their interpretive skills with age, as suggested by prior research (Article II)? Alternatively, I propose that these preferences may reflect a stronger expectation for communication to be literal, challenging existing explanations (Article III). Article I assesses 3- to 7-year-olds’ and adults’ understanding of novel metaphors and finds that children successfully interpret metaphors when no literal options are available. However, when literal options are present, both children and adults choose them nearly exclusively. Article II explores whether 4- to 8-year-olds and adults can use prior discourse context to reject implausible literal interpretations. Results indicate that while children are able to derive metaphorical meanings from context, literal meaning has a more significant impact on their reference resolution than real-world plausibility compared with adults. Article III examines 3- to 5-year-old children’s and adults’ perceptions of literal versus metaphorical speech within a ‘trust-in-testimony framework.’ Both groups rated literally accurate descriptions higher than equally appropriate metaphors. Although older children could endorse metaphorical speakers over inaccurate ones, younger children struggled to accept metaphorical uses of language. Qualitative data further indicate that children have a stronger expectation for literal speech. Overall, this thesis found no evidence of a metaphor deficit among younger children nor a direct link between literalist preferences and metaphor comprehension. Instead, children’s preference for literal accuracy seems to reflect a conceptual difference in how they prioritize literal over metaphorical meaning. The findings call for a shift in metaphor comprehension research away from deficit-based assumptions, moving forward by (1) avoiding the conflation of literalist responses with general task difficulties and (2) clearly distinguishing between studies aimed at assessing sensitivity to metaphorical meaning and those investigating when metaphorical interpretations are favored over literal ones. I conclude by emphasizing the need to move beyond neurotypical, adult-centered communicative models in research on pragmatic development.

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