No abstract

Property comparison models of metaphor comprehension assume that the topic and vehicle terms in metaphors are both understood to be referring to their conventional literal referents. In contrast, the interactive property attribution model (Glucksberg, McGlone, & Manfredi, 1997) assumes that the vehicle is understood to be referring to a metaphoric category that includes the topic's literal referent as a member. A priming paradigm was used to test the implications of these different models. Prior to interpreting a metaphor, participants read (1) the topic or vehicle concept alone, (2) a sentence ascribing a metaphor-relevant property to one concept, or (3) a sentence ascribing a metaphor-irrelevant property to one concept. All of the prime types facilitatedmetaphor comprehension with the exception of sentences ascribing metaphor-irrelevant properties to vehicles. The failure of these sentences (but not their topic counterparts) to facilitate metaphor comprehension is attributable to their priming an inappropriate literal interpretation of the vehicle term. These results are consistent with the claim that irrelevant information is suppressed during language comprehension (Gernsbacher, 1990) and support the interactive property attribution model.

veryday conversation is littered with metaphorical language, as this E sentence self-consciously illustrates. And, as this previous sentence also illustrates, figurative expressions apparently violate categories. After all, a conversation cannot literally be littered with anything, let alone with a type of language, and only animate beings can be self-conscious, certainly not sentences! Yet such sentences seem to pose no problems for people when either reading or engaging in everyday conversation.

No abstract

No abstract