Metaphor Comprehension in Low and High Creative Individuals

Abstract

The comprehension of metaphors involves the ability to activate a broader, more flexible set of semantic associations in order to integrate the meanings of the weakly related parts of the metaphor into a meaningful linguistic expression. Previous findings point to a relation between levels of creativity and efficiency in processing metaphoric expressions, as measured by reaction times (RTs) and error rates. Furthermore, recent studies have found that more creative individuals exhibit a relatively more flexible semantic memory structure compared to less creative individuals, which may facilitate their comprehension of novel metaphors. In the present study, lower and higher creative individuals performed a semantic relatedness judgment task on word pairs. These word pairs comprised four types of semantic relations: novel metaphors, conventional metaphors, literal word pairs, and meaningless word pairs. We hypothesized that the two groups will perform similarly in comprehending the literal, unrelated, and the conventional metaphoric word pairs. However, with respect to novel metaphors, we predicted that higher creative individuals will demonstrate better performance compared to lower creative individuals, as indicated by smaller RTs and more accurate responses. Our main finding shows that higher creative individuals were faster in comprehending both types of metaphors, conventional and novel, compared to lower creative individuals. Furthermore, higher creative individuals were significantly more accurate than lower creative individual only in comprehending novel metaphors. The findings are discussed in light of previous findings regarding the relation between metaphor comprehension, semantic memory, and creativity.

Let’s Read a Poem! What Type of Poetry Boosts Creativity?

“…In general, metaphoric expression often involves mapping between abstract and more concrete concepts ( Glucksberg, 2001 , 2003 ); therefore, the comprehension of metaphors requires the activation of a broader set of semantic associations. This is due to connecting two remote parts of a metaphor (theme and vehicle) into a meaningful expression ( Paivio, 1979 ; Kenett et al, 2018 ). Poetry reception can involve readiness to notice similarities between remote categories, which can be a crucial ability in generating creative ideas (e.g., Mednick, 1962 ; Koestler, 1964 ; Martindale, 1989 ).…”

“…Thinking expressed in metaphors always involves the flexible activation and manipulation of acquired knowledge ( Benedek et al, 2014 ); even though metaphors are not always creative, even in poetry. Understanding a conventional metaphor is not intellectually challenging: comprehending such expressions is based on the retrieval of well-known meaning from memory ( Kenett et al, 2018 ). For example, love can be understood metaphorically as a nutrient.…”

Creative Argumentation: When and Why People Commit the Metaphoric Fallacy

“…In any case, the previous literature coming from different theoretical approaches agrees on the fact that novel metaphor comprehension is more demanding in terms of contextual and encyclopedic knowledge ( Glucksberg and Estes, 2000 ; Glucksberg, 2003 ; Giora, 2003 ; Bambini et al, 2016 ; Kenett et al, 2018 ), as a completely creative meaning, divergent from the literal one, is intended. In particular, when evaluating quaternio terminorum with plausible conclusion, participants might have taken a longer time in the case of NM middle terms as compared to P and CM middle terms, because of the search of a creative meaning of NM that is able to make sense of the plausible conclusion.…”

“…The relevant properties shared between the target A and the source B of a metaphor are all the properties belonging to the source B that can be mapped onto the target A. Especially in the case of conventional metaphors, the set of relevant properties is given by a “system of associated commonplaces” that usually are assumed to hold true about the source B, applicable to the target and integrated within semantic memory structure ( Black, 1954 ; Gibbs, 1994 ; Glucksberg, 2003 ; Bowdle and Gentner, 2005 ; Kenett et al, 2018 ). For instance, when we say that “A lawyer is a shark,” we are not claiming that sharks and lawyers share exactly all and the same properties, but rather that a lawyer is comparable to a shark on the basis of a certain set of relevant properties X, including the property of “being aggressive” typically associated with the concept of “shark.” Based on this comparison, if B has the relevant property C belonging to the set X, then it is fair to conclude that A also has the property C. Therefore, given that “A shark is aggressive,” as per analogy, we should conclude that “A lawyer is aggressive”:…”

“…In fact, conventional metaphors are not perceived as metaphors, bearing a status similar to polysemous literal term ( Carston, 2002 ; Giora, 2003 ; Bowdle and Gentner, 2005 ; Kenett et al, 2018 ), and unconsciously act as triggers of “systems of commonplaces” or background of associated beliefs ( Black, 1954 ; Coulson, 2001 ; Lakoff, 2004 ; Thibodeau and Boroditsky, 2011 , 2013 ). Novel metaphors, however, are consciously processed as metaphors and require new, original and creative interpretations ( Indurkhya, 2007b , 2010 ; Kenett et al, 2018 ). We therefore expected a major influence of conventional metaphors in the evaluation of arguments, when compared with novel metaphors, as in the latter case participants are aware of the falsity both of premises and of the deviant, creative interpretation of the conclusion.…”