The Inferential Chain makes the Difference between Familiar and Novel Figurative Expressions.

The present investigation focuses on children’s ability to comprehend the communicative meaning of figurative expressions. We advance a theoretical framework where the length of the inferential chain accounts for the difference in difficulty of reconstructing the communicative meaning of familiar and novel figurative expressions. The results of Experiment 1, involving 90 children from seven to ten-year-olds, confirm our prediction. Experiment 2, involving 54 children of the same age, does not support an alternative, syntactic, explanation for our results. Experiment 3, involving 54 children aged between seven and ten, replicates the results of the two previous experiments in a single experiment. The overall results strengthen our assumptions: the length of the inferential chain, but not the syntactic complexity involved, is the factor that better explains the difference in difficulty of reconstructing the communicative meaning of the familiar and novel figurative expressions investigated. The overall results are discussed in relation to the relevant experimental literature.