Metaphor Comprehension: In Search of Literal Truth, Possible Sense, and Metaphoricity

Gregory, Monica E.; Mergler, Nancy L.

doi:10.1207/s15327868ms0503_2

Cited by 50 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…To date, only two other studies have collected comprehension times for both metaphors and similes, and the results of these studies seem contradictory. On the one hand, Gregory and Mergler (1990) found that similes were read more quickly than metaphors. (This result emerged in a pretest meant to establish baseline reading times for subsequent verification tasks in which subjects judged whether various types of statements were literally true, made sense, or were metaphoric.)…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Career of Metaphor.

Bowdle

Gentner

2005

Psychological Review

951

681

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A central question in metaphor research is how metaphors establish mappings between concepts from different domains. The authors propose an evolutionary path based on structure-mapping theory. This hypothesis--the career of metaphor--postulates a shift in mode of mapping from comparison to categorization as metaphors are conventionalized. Moreover, as demonstrated by 3 experiments, this processing shift is reflected in the very language that people use to make figurative assertions. The career of metaphor hypothesis offers a unified theoretical framework that can resolve the debate between comparison and categorization models of metaphor. This account further suggests that whether metaphors are processed directly or indirectly, and whether they operate at the level of individual concepts or entire conceptual domains, will depend both on their degree of conventionality and on their linguistic form.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Career of Metaphor.

Bowdle

Gentner

2005

Psychological Review

951

681

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“…Bowdle and Gentner (2005) found that this difference is psychologically relevant, with simile constructions better suited to nonconventional figurative statements (e.g., The mind is [like] a garden), and metaphors better suited to conventional figurative statements (e.g., An opportunity is [like] a doorway). Likewise, Gregory and Mergler (1990) found that similes are more successful at highlighting non-obvious similarities between X and Y. Bowdle and Gentner (2005) characterize the "is like a" simile construction as principally engaging analogical-comparison processes. In terms of the three types of relational match we explore in Experiment 2 (roles, relations, and scenarios), the aforementioned results suggest that "like" should serve to increase the effect of role matches as these matching objects play analogous roles within their respective instances of the relation.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond common features: The role of roles in determining similarity☆

Jones

Love

2007

Cognitive Psychology

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Historically, accounts of object representation and perceived similarity have focused on intrinsic features. Although more recent accounts have explored how objects, scenes, and situations containing common relational structures come to be perceived as similar, less is known about how the perceived similarity of parts or objects embedded within these relational systems is affected. The current studies test the hypothesis that objects situated in common relational systems come to be perceived as more similar. Similarity increases most for objects playing the same role within a relation (e.g., predator), but also increases for objects playing different roles within the same relation (e.g., the predator or prey role in the hunts relation) regardless of whether the objects participate in the same instance of the relation. This pattern of results can be captured by extending existing models that extract meaning from text corpora so that they are sensitive to the verb-specific thematic roles that objects fill. Alternative explanations based on analogical and inferential processes are also considered, as well as the implications of the current findings to research in language processing, decision making, and category learning.

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“…However, the unrelated metaphor condition showed reading times midway between related and baseline conditions, suggesting some facilitation. Although norming work suggested that it would be difficult to find a relationship between the two metaphors in the unrelated condition, it is possible that participants may use a metaphor mode (Gregory & Mergler, 1990) while pondering the meanings in the encoding task and at least in some cases find a relationship between metaphoric meanings. Although this would take a long time at encoding, it might also lead to better recall.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reading and Recall of Metaphorical Sentences: Effects of Familiarity and Context

Blasko¹,

Briihl²

1997

Metaphor and Symbol

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Two experiments examined the effects of familiarity and context on the reading and recall of metaphorical sentences. In Experiment 1, eye movements were recorded during the reading of high-or low-familiar target metaphors that were preceded by either a related metaphor, an unrelated metaphor, or an unrelated literal sentence. High-familiar metaphors were read more quickly than low-familiar metaphors. Related metaphor contexts facilitated reading times. Experiment 2 examined memory for high-and low-familiar metaphors using the 3 context conditions from Experiment 1 as cues. The high-and low-familiar metaphors were remembered at similar rates. Metaphors cued by a related metaphor were recalled at a higher rate than those cued by an unrelated literal or metaphorical sentence. The results suggest a partial dissociation between comprehension and memory processes.One important function of metaphor is to express ideas that are difficult or impossible to express literally. If a newly created metaphor proves successful, it may be used repeatedly until, in some cases, the metaphorical meaning becomes a secondary sense of the metaphor's predicate term (vehicle). In this way, metaphor is crucial to the evolution of a natural language. One purpose of this study was to examine the processing and representational implications of a metaphor's journey from novel to familiar.

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Metaphor Comprehension: In Search of Literal Truth, Possible Sense, and Metaphoricity

Cited by 50 publications

References 28 publications

The Career of Metaphor.

The Career of Metaphor.

Beyond common features: The role of roles in determining similarity☆

Reading and Recall of Metaphorical Sentences: Effects of Familiarity and Context

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