TY - JOUR
T1 - Conventional metaphors elicit greater real-time engagement than literal paraphrases or concrete sentences
AU - Mon, Serena K.
AU - Nencheva, Mira
AU - Citron, Francesca M.M.
AU - Lew-Williams, Casey
AU - Goldberg, Adele E.
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful to Robin Gomila for statistical advice. We also thank three anonymous reviewers from JML and associate editor Penny Pexman for helpful feedback and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper. Finally, we appreciate thoughtful feedback and discussion from audiences at UC Merced, Cornell, the 19th EdukCircle International Convention on Psychology, University of Michigan, and University of Alberta.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - Conventional metaphors (e.g., a firm grasp on an idea) are extremely common. A possible explanation for their ubiquity is that they are more engaging, evoking more focused attention, than their literal paraphrases (e.g., a good understanding of an idea). To evaluate whether, when, and why this may be true, we created a new database of 180 English sentences consisting of conventional metaphors, literal paraphrases, and concrete descriptions (e.g., a firm grip on a doorknob). Extensive norming matched differences across sentence types in complexity, plausibility, emotional valence, intensity, and familiarity of the key phrases. Then, using pupillometry to study the time course of metaphor processing, we predicted that metaphors would elicit greater event-evoked pupil dilation compared to other sentence types. Results confirmed the predicted increase beginning at the onset of the key phrase and lasting seconds beyond the end of the sentence. When metaphorical and literal sentences were compared directly in survey data, participants judged metaphorical sentences to convey “richer meaning,” but not more information. We conclude that conventional metaphors are more engaging than literal paraphrases or concrete sentences in a way that is irreducible to difficulty or ease, amount of information, short-term lexical access, or downstream inferences.
AB - Conventional metaphors (e.g., a firm grasp on an idea) are extremely common. A possible explanation for their ubiquity is that they are more engaging, evoking more focused attention, than their literal paraphrases (e.g., a good understanding of an idea). To evaluate whether, when, and why this may be true, we created a new database of 180 English sentences consisting of conventional metaphors, literal paraphrases, and concrete descriptions (e.g., a firm grip on a doorknob). Extensive norming matched differences across sentence types in complexity, plausibility, emotional valence, intensity, and familiarity of the key phrases. Then, using pupillometry to study the time course of metaphor processing, we predicted that metaphors would elicit greater event-evoked pupil dilation compared to other sentence types. Results confirmed the predicted increase beginning at the onset of the key phrase and lasting seconds beyond the end of the sentence. When metaphorical and literal sentences were compared directly in survey data, participants judged metaphorical sentences to convey “richer meaning,” but not more information. We conclude that conventional metaphors are more engaging than literal paraphrases or concrete sentences in a way that is irreducible to difficulty or ease, amount of information, short-term lexical access, or downstream inferences.
KW - Comprehension
KW - Focused attention
KW - Meaning
KW - Metaphor
KW - Pupil dilation
KW - Sentence processing
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jml.2021.104285
DO - 10.1016/j.jml.2021.104285
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85115222421
SN - 0749-596X
VL - 121
JO - Journal of Memory and Language
JF - Journal of Memory and Language
M1 - 104285
ER -