Neural mechanisms involved in the comprehension of metaphoric and literal sentences: An fMRI study

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the neural substrate involved in the comprehension of novel metaphoric sentences by comparing the findings to those obtained with literal and anomalous sentences using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Stimuli consisted of 63 copula sentences ("An A is a B") in Japanese with metaphorical, literal, or anomalous meanings. Thirteen normal participants read these sentences silently and responded as to whether or not they could understand the meaning of each sentence. When participants read metaphoric sentences in contrast to literal sentences, higher activation was seen in the left medial frontal cortex (MeFC: Brodmann's area (BA) 9/10), the left superior frontal cortex (SFC: BA 9), and the left inferior frontal cortex (IFC: BA 45). The opposite contrast (literal sentences in contrast to metaphoric sentences) gave higher activation in the precuneus (BA 7) and the right middle and SFC (BA 8/9). These findings suggest that metaphor comprehension is involved in specific neural mechanisms of semantic and pragmatic processing which differ from those in literal comprehension. Especially, our results suggest that activation in the left IFC reflects the semantic processing and that activation in the MeFC reflects the process of inference for metaphorical interpretation to establish semantic coherence.

Processing Metaphors in the Elderly: Does Valence Matter?

“…The simplicity of this connection is currently being questioned (see e.g. studies by Rapp, Leube, Erb, Grodd, & Kircher, 2004, 2007Shibata, Abe, Terao, & Miyamoto, 2007), but the majority of the authors do not disprove the right hemisphere's role in processing metaphorical content, especially of unconventional character (see review in Bartczak & Bokus, 2013).…”

“…The metaphorical structure most commonly used in contemporary research is An A is a B (e.g. Rapp et al, 2004Rapp et al, , 2007Shibata et al, 2007), but it is possible to use other structures based on other theoretical conceptions of metaphor (e.g. X seems Y, Dobrzyńska, 1994; X is like Y in terms of Z, End, 1986;When I imagine X, I see Y, Stępnik, 1988; or One could say that X is not X, but Y, Wierzbicka, 1971; cf.…”

“…Bottini et al, 1994; for a review, see Kacinik & Chiarello, 2007), an increasing number of recent publications undermines the simplicity of the posited link between right hemisphere activation and metaphorical language processing. For example, Shibata et al (2007) have shown in an fMRI study that both hemispheres become activated during metaphorical stimuli processing, with the left hemisphere showing even greater activation than the right one, while, according to the results of Rapp et al (2004, 2007, metaphorical sentence processing is related chiefly to the activation of the left, rather than the right hemisphere: Reading metaphorical content (compared to literal) was especially linked to activation in the left inferior frontal cortex (BA 45/47) and the left temporal cortex.…”

“…Valence was usually not controlled for in studies on metaphor processing -and in the cases where it was, the studies did not simultaneously control for conventionalization -and were carried out on younger populations. For example, Shibata et al (2007) examined (via fMRI) the neuronal foundations of metaphorical -compared to literal and meaningless -sentence comprehension (with the structure of An A is a B). The participants were asked to silently read the sentences and state whether they were able to comprehend them.…”

Aproximación teórico-práctica al procesamiento lingüístico de neologismos léxicos

“…Así, aunque se ha demostrado mediante estudios experimentales que no hay diferencia en términos de duración temporal o esfuerzo cognitivo en el procesamiento de significados convencionales frente a significados metafóricos (Pollio, Fabrizi, Sills & Smith, 1984), los resultados son distintos para las metáforas de nueva creación 12 (Geiger, 1999;Arzouan, Goldstein & Faust, 2007;Lai, Curran & Menn, 2009). En cualquier caso, se ha argumentado que las rutas metafóricas ya conocidas sirven para activar nuevas conexiones, sin un gran coste cognitivo (Shibata, Abe, Terao & Miyamoto, 2007;Thibodeau & Durgin, 2008). Atendiendo a esta idea, durante el procesamiento de la secuencia 'tan crecido en la indignación como aureolado en la derrota' (véase la Tabla 1), recurriríamos a la metáfora convencional 'aureola' = 'distinción' para lograr descifrar esta creación semántica.…”