Metaphorical Sentences Are More Emotionally Engaging than Their Literal Counterparts

Abstract

Why do people so often use metaphorical expressions when literal paraphrases are readily available? This study focuses on a comparison of metaphorical statements involving the source domain of taste (e.g., "She looked at him sweetly") and their literal paraphrases (e.g., "She looked at him kindly"). Metaphorical and literal sentences differed only in one word and were normed for length, familiarity, imageability, emotional valence, and arousal. Our findings indicate that conventional metaphorical expressions are more emotionally evocative than literal expressions, as the amygdala and the anterior portion of the hippocampus were more active in the metaphorical sentences. They also support the idea that even conventional metaphors can be grounded in sensorimotor and perceptual representations in that primary and secondary gustatory areas (lateral OFC, frontal operculum, anterior insula) were more active as well. A comparison of the individual words that distinguished the metaphorical and literal sentences revealed greater activation in the lateral OFC and the frontal operculum for the taste-related words, supporting the claim that these areas are relevant to taste.

When emotions are expressed figuratively: Psycholinguistic and Affective Norms of 619 Idioms for German (PANIG)

“…Since unambiguous idioms only possess a figurative interpretation, the fact that they are rated as more arousing and emotionally valenced than ambiguous idioms fits nicely with recent neuroimaging data showing that figurative formulations are more emotionally engaging than their literal counterparts (Citron & Goldberg, 2014).…”

“…Recent brainimaging evidence has shown that nonliteral sentences evoked stronger implicit emotional responses than literal sentences (Bohrn, Altmann, & Jacobs, 2012). Similarly, a study on taste metaphors showed that metaphorical sentences elicited enhanced activation of the amygdala compared to their literal counterparts, which were matched for valence and arousal (Citron & Goldberg, 2014).…”

“…Furthermore, at least in American English, there seem to be as many fixed expressions as there are words (Jackendoff, 1995). Nevertheless, the role of figurative language in conveying affect is still poorly understood (Citron & Goldberg, 2014;Fainsilber & Ortony, 1987;Fussell & Moss, 1998;Schrott & Jacobs, 2011).…”

“…A few neurocognitive studies to date have controlled the affective characteristics of figurative as compared to literal language, with a predominant interest in metaphors (Bohrn, Altmann, Lubrich, Menninghaus, & Jacobs, 2012;Citron & Goldberg, 2014;Forgács et al, 2012;Forgács, Lukács, & Pléh, 2014). However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has yet provided descriptive norms of affective variables for the most common among figurative expressions-namely, idioms.…”

Emotional context modulates embodied metaphor comprehension

“…A couple of fMRI studies have examined the link between metaphor and emotion (Bohrn et al, 2012;Citron and Goldberg, 2014). One example is an fMRI study by Citron and Goldberg (2014) in which participants read sentences with metaphorical content ('She looked at him sweetly') and carefully matched literal counterparts ('She looked at him kindly').…”