Do You Have a "Strict Purse"? The Routes to Meaning in Metaphor

<p>Theoretically there are two processing systems through which meaning can be found for a given statement: an effortless, associative processing system (meaning retrieval), or an effortful, analytical processing system (meaning construction). The current study investigated whether or not the context in which target (loosely figurative) word-pairs are presented can influence whether a person relies on associative or analytical processing to find their meaning. Participants were presented with target (loosely figurative) novel word-pairs and asked to judge them for meaningfulness. These target novel word-pairs were presented in different contexts: either mixed with clearly meaningful word-pairs or with additional novel word-pairs. By nature, meaning cannot be retrieved for novel word-pairs, so if a novel word-pair is to be found "meaningful," then its meaning must usually be constructed online (via the analytical processing system). Consistent with increased reliance on analytical processing, participants who saw target novel word-pairs mixed with additional novel word-pairs judged them meaningful more often than did participants who saw them mixed with clearly meaningful word-pairs. Participants who saw target novel word-pairs mixed with additional novel word-pairs also had more negative N400s to target novel word-pairs, indicating that they committed more semantic effort to the processing of these (again consistent with analytical processing). Associative processing does not involve attempts to construct new meaning for given word-pairs. Consistent with increased reliance on associative processing, participants who saw target novel word-pairs mixed with clearly meaningful word-pairs judged them meaningful less often than did participants who saw them mixed with additional novel word-pairs. These participants also had less negative N400s to target novel word-pairs, indicating that they committed less semantic effort to the processing of these (again fitting with associative processing). Further evidence for different contexts leading to differential processing of the same target novel word-pairs was provided by examination of wave morphology. Two distinctive patterns of neural activation were found in response to the same target novel word-pairs, differing depending on the context in which these appeared. Overall, the results of the current study were consistent with the hypothesis that context can influence which processing system is relied upon to find meaning for a given statement. This finding challenges contemporary models of meaning construction and metaphor comprehension by showing that context is essential to these processes and needs to be taken into consideration.</p>

Do You Have a "Strict Purse"? The Routes to Meaning in Metaphor

<p>Theoretically there are two processing systems through which meaning can be found for a given statement: an effortless, associative processing system (meaning retrieval), or an effortful, analytical processing system (meaning construction). The current study investigated whether or not the context in which target (loosely figurative) word-pairs are presented can influence whether a person relies on associative or analytical processing to find their meaning. Participants were presented with target (loosely figurative) novel word-pairs and asked to judge them for meaningfulness. These target novel word-pairs were presented in different contexts: either mixed with clearly meaningful word-pairs or with additional novel word-pairs. By nature, meaning cannot be retrieved for novel word-pairs, so if a novel word-pair is to be found "meaningful," then its meaning must usually be constructed online (via the analytical processing system). Consistent with increased reliance on analytical processing, participants who saw target novel word-pairs mixed with additional novel word-pairs judged them meaningful more often than did participants who saw them mixed with clearly meaningful word-pairs. Participants who saw target novel word-pairs mixed with additional novel word-pairs also had more negative N400s to target novel word-pairs, indicating that they committed more semantic effort to the processing of these (again consistent with analytical processing). Associative processing does not involve attempts to construct new meaning for given word-pairs. Consistent with increased reliance on associative processing, participants who saw target novel word-pairs mixed with clearly meaningful word-pairs judged them meaningful less often than did participants who saw them mixed with additional novel word-pairs. These participants also had less negative N400s to target novel word-pairs, indicating that they committed less semantic effort to the processing of these (again fitting with associative processing). Further evidence for different contexts leading to differential processing of the same target novel word-pairs was provided by examination of wave morphology. Two distinctive patterns of neural activation were found in response to the same target novel word-pairs, differing depending on the context in which these appeared. Overall, the results of the current study were consistent with the hypothesis that context can influence which processing system is relied upon to find meaning for a given statement. This finding challenges contemporary models of meaning construction and metaphor comprehension by showing that context is essential to these processes and needs to be taken into consideration.</p>

Activating the Right Hemisphere Through Left-Hand Muscle Contraction Improves Novel Metaphor Comprehension

The neurotypical brain is characterized by left hemisphere lateralization for most language processing. However, the right hemisphere plays a crucial part when it is required to bring together seemingly unrelated concepts into meaningful expressions, such as in the case of novel metaphors (unfamiliar figurative expressions). The aim of the current study was to test whether it is possible to enhance novel metaphor comprehension through an easy, efficient, and non-invasive method – intentional contraction of the left hand’s muscles, to activate the motor and sensory areas in the contralateral hemisphere. One hundred eighteen neurotypical participants were asked to perform a semantic judgment task involving two-word expressions of four types: literal, conventional metaphors, novel metaphors, or unrelated, while squeezing a rubber ball with their right hand, left hand, or not at all. Results demonstrated that left-hand contraction improved novel metaphor comprehension, as participants were more accurate and quicker in judging them to be meaningful. The findings of the present work provide a simple and efficient method for boosting right hemisphere activation, which can be used to improve metaphoric language comprehension. This method can aid several populations in which right hemisphere function is not fully established, and who struggle with processing figurative language, such as adolescents and individuals on the autistic spectrum.

The critical role of interference control in metaphor comprehension evidenced by the drift–diffusion model

We address the question of, among several executive functions, which one has a strong influence on metaphor comprehension. To this end, participants took part in a metaphor comprehension task where metaphors had varying levels of familiarity (familiar vs. novel metaphors) with different conditions of context (supporting vs. opposing contexts). We scrutinized each participant’s detailed executive functions using seven neuropsychological tests. More interestingly, we modelled their responses in metaphor comprehension using the drift–diffusion model, in an attempt to provide more systematic accounts of the processes underlying metaphor comprehension. Results showed that there were significant negative correlations between response times in metaphor comprehension and scores of the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT)-Semantic, suggesting that better performances in comprehending metaphors were strongly associated with better interference control. Using the drift–diffusion model, we found that the familiarity, compared to context, had greater leverage in the decision process for metaphor comprehension. Moreover, individuals with better performance in the COWAT-Semantic test demonstrated higher drift rates. In conclusion, with more fine-grained analysis of the decisions involved in metaphor comprehension using the drift–diffusion model, we argue that interference control plays an important role in processing metaphors.

Continuous neural activations of simulation and linguistic information during metaphor processing

Language processing relies on conceptual representations which are composed of two crucial components, embodied simulation and linguistic distributional pattern. The embodied component refers to the reactivation of previous sensorimotor experiences related to the concept (e.g., experiences with a clever student when reading "bright student"); the linguistic component refers to the co-occurrence pattern of the constituent words (i.e., how often "bright" and "student" appear in the same context). In this study, we examined the existence and roles of these components in metaphor processing. Using both a behavioural study and EEG, we studied how these components affected the speed, success rate and neurophysiological activations of metaphor comprehension. We found that, while performance of metaphor comprehension was mainly influenced by the embodied component, the linguistic component was activated before the embodied component reached its peak and could act as a shortcut to construct good-enough representations, such that people found it easier to accept and hard to reject a metaphor when the distributional frequency of constituent words was high. In other words, the linguistic distributional pattern could provide a guide for conceptual representations before the embodied component was fully engaged.

Electrophysiological insights into the role of proficiency in bilingual novel and conventional metaphor processing

While novel and conventional metaphor comprehension has received much attention in the monolingual context, thus far little electrophysiological research has been conducted with a view to examining how bilingual speakers process metaphors in their non-native language (L2) as well as how L2 proficiency level might modulate such processes. The present study aims to investigate the electrophysiological correlates of novel and conventional metaphor comprehension in intermediate and advanced Chinese-English bilingual speakers. The participants performed a semantic decision task to English (L2) novel metaphoric, conventional metaphoric, literal, and anomalous word pairs. The results showed a graded N400 effect from literal utterances, to conventional metaphors, novel metaphors, and finally to anomalous utterances in both groups of participants, indicating that both types of metaphors were more cognitively taxing than literal utterances, irrespectively of L2 proficiency level. Additionally, between-group differences that were irrespective of utterance type were found in the N400 time frame, indicating more extended lexico-semantic access in the intermediate relative to the advanced group. Finally, in both groups of participants, an anterior sustained negativity was found in response to anomalous, novel metaphoric, and conventional metaphoric word pairs, thus suggesting a continuing difficulty of meaning integration.

"THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING METAPHORS WORKING WITH FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: SOME TOOLS"

"We present two versions of assessment/intervention tools for metaphors awareness or their comprehension: the TCM, Metaphor Comprehension Test, for children aged 9 to 14, or elementary school (Portugal), and the junior TCM, for children aged 4 to 6 years, or preschool age. They are versions/adaptations for European Portuguese of existing tools in Italian. The authors of the Italian versions are professors at the University of Sapienza, Rome, Italy, with internationally recognized work, presenting the original versions with good psychometric qualities. At the moment, the two instruments are already adapted for Portuguese, in the process of being applied in order to obtain the normative data and their validation. We expect, similar to what happens with the Italian versions, to obtain valid tools, with triple instrumentality: psychometric assessment and dynamic assessment and intervention resource, for various stages of development."