The role of polysemy on metaphor comprehension processing: The example of Parkinson’s disease Christina Tremblay a, b , Joël Macoir a, b , Mélanie Langlois c , Laura Monetta a, b, * a Faculté de médecine, Département de réadaptation, Université Laval, 1050, ave de la Médecine, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada b Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Québec, 2601, rue de la Canardière, Québec, QC G1J 2G3, Canada c Clinique des troubles du mouvement, Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus, 1401, 18e rue, Québec, QC G1J 1Z4, Canada article info Article history: Received 4 November 2013 Received in revised form 24 February 2014 Accepted 25 February 2014 Keywords: Polysemy Metaphor comprehension Parkinson’s disease abstract Metaphoric language is used every day. The manner in which a metaphor is understood may depend on different factors such as polysemy (the property of a word to have multiple related mean- ings). Polysemy may have an impact on metaphor comprehension particularly in individuals with executive impairments such as pa- tients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). The goal of this study was to investigate the influence of polysemy on metaphor comprehension processing in PD and healthy matched controls. Twenty individuals with PD and twenty controls completed a metaphor comprehension task including metaphors build with a polysemous (MP) and non- polysemous word (MNP). Both groups made significantly more comprehension errors and took significantly longer to understand MNP than MP, suggesting that polysemy has the same effect on metaphor comprehension regardless of the group. Interestingly, a comprehension impairment was observed in the PD group for both types of metaphors, indicating that polysemy does not seem to in- fluence the metaphor comprehension deficit in PD. Further in- vestigations are needed to better understand this finding. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Québec (IUSMQ), 2601, chemin de la Canardière, Québec, QC G1J 2G3, Canada. Tel.: þ1 418 656 2131x6393; fax: þ1 418 656 5476. E-mail addresses: christina.tremblay.1@ulaval.ca (C. Tremblay), Joel.Macoir@rea.ulaval.ca (J. Macoir), Melanie.Langlois.cha@ ssss.gouv.qc.ca (M. Langlois), Laura.Monetta@rea.ulaval.ca (L. Monetta). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Neurolinguistics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ jneuroling http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2014.02.002 0911-6044/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Neurolinguistics 30 (2014) 1–13