Comprehension of metaphors and Similes: A Reaction Time Study

Johnson, Andrew T.

doi:10.1207/s15327868ms1102_3

Cited by 29 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 17 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Support for the attributive categorization model has come from studies using a variety of tasks, including reaction time (Glucksberg, McGlone, & Manfredi, 1997;Johnson, 1996), paraphrasing (Glucksberg et al, 1997;McGlone, 1996), and cued recall (Johnson, 1995;McGlone, 1996).…”

Section: Previous Research On Metaphors and Similesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Memory for metaphors and similes in discourse

Harris

Mosier²

1999

Discourse Processes

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Previous Research On Metaphors and Similesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of these studies (Johnson, 1995) compared similes and metaphors in both English and Spanish. Participants were presented with a list of sentences that contained metaphors ("Cigarettes are time bombs") and similes ("Cigarettes are like time bombs").…”

Section: Previous Research On Metaphors and Similesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Memory for metaphors and similes in discourse

Harris

Mosier²

1999

Discourse Processes

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Thus, the reading time effects for context by idiom were biased by the systematically correlated interaction with actors and referents. Johnson (1996) contrasted metaphors and similes on comprehension speed for priming sentences. He also recorded the response speed for verifying the appropriateness of target sentences.…”

Section: Examplesmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…If they behave like metaphors (perhaps in metaphoric contexts), the conventional use is affected by figurative interference. Similes (comparisons with the preposition like) are a more suitable expression type (see Johnson, 1996). In contrast with metaphors (A is B), the preposition (A is like B) may immediately launch the figurative or relation stage, so that the fixed seriality of stages is limited by the linguistic indicator like.…”

Section: Examplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Hazard of Hidden Interactions: A Reanalysis of Designs in Reaction-Time Studies on Metaphor

Hoorn

2000

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, and the Critical and Cultural Studies CommonsDedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press selects, develops, and distributes quality resources in several key subject areas for which its parent university is famous, including business, technology, health, veterinary medicine, and other selected disciplines in the humanities and sciences.CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey) The study of literature attaches much worth to putting theory to the test. In metaphor theory also a great deal of experimentation is found, particularly among cognitive psychologists with an interest in (literary) language and among literary scholars with an interest in psychological methods. Although the experiments may obtain valuable information, much of its value is lost or interpreted wrongly by improper use of the statistical tools of analysis. In this article, I explain that many experiments that supposedly have a 2x2 design, actually used more factors or factor levels, and thus contain a higher-order interaction. For the research question, such interactions seem unimportant. They often are resulting from trivial manipulation: The order of presenting the stimuli, or the order of using the preferred hand in a reaction-time (RT) choice task. Yet, I will point out that higher-order interactions may cast a completely different light on what seems a straightforward result. The rationale of my article is quite simple. Suppose a group of expert readers is contrasted with a group of novices to see whether education improves the understanding of postmodern poetry. It turns out that experts find postmodern poems better to comprehend than novices. Of course, experts are better educated, and practice facilitates comprehension. However, this interpretation is based purely on analysis of a main effect (experts vs. novices). Suppose, however, that the results show no difference for sex in novices but do show that female experts comprehend postmodern poetry much better than expert men do. It now turns out that comprehensibility only increased for expert female readers. In other words, education only facilitates comprehension for women. Men stay as stupid as they were. Thus, the interaction between expertise and sex strongly limits the generalization that education improves comprehensibility. Naturally, most researchers do not neglect the possible effects of such important factors as sex and age. However, less obvious factors are ignored all too often, although they may limit findings in quite the sa...

show abstract

“…With respect to the first implication, Johnson [20] examined the difference in time to understand metaphors in context, and found that similes did indeed take more time to understand and integrate into a text than did metaphors. With respect to differences between metaphors and similes, there is general agreement that metaphors are somehow richer and more striking than similes [27], but there is no direct evidence for this -it relies primarily on intuition.…”

Section: Understanding Metaphors and Similesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Metaphors: The Paradox of Unlike Things Compared

Glucksberg

2011

Affective Computing and Sentiment Analysis

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Comprehension of metaphors and Similes: A Reaction Time Study

Cited by 29 publications

References 17 publications

Memory for metaphors and similes in discourse

Memory for metaphors and similes in discourse

The Hazard of Hidden Interactions: A Reanalysis of Designs in Reaction-Time Studies on Metaphor

Understanding Metaphors: The Paradox of Unlike Things Compared

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About