Conceptual inferences in elderly people with and without Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

This paper focuses on a crucial aspect for language comprehension in the presence of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD): inference construal. Deriving from the common assumption that AD brings about cognitive impairments since its earliest stages, which affect declarative memory and one’s ability to adequately integrate conceptual domains for the comprehension of literal and metaphorical structures, we carried out reading tests with AD individuals, as well as with individuals without AD in order to measure the frequency of correct and incorrect answers within both groups to comprehension tasks, and to assess the effects of AD in the process of interpreting inferences supposedly licensed by metaphorical or literal structures. Initial tests confirm the predicted tendency of reduced accuracy of the AD group in providing authorized inferences for both metaphorical and literal structures, if compared to control group, even when these structures are supported by additional imagistic resources.