The Role of Suppression and Enhancement in Understanding Metaphors☆

Gernsbacher, Morton Ann; Keysar, Boaz; Robertson, Rachel R.W.; Werner, Necia

doi:10.1006/jmla.2000.2782

Cited by 145 publications

(147 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…2 With respect to goals, for instance, Lutz and Radvansky (1997) observed that failed goal information remained more available than completed goal information and concluded that this was due to "both an increased availability of failed goal information and a decreased availability of completed goal information (relative to failed goal information)" (p. 308). Additional evidence has supported the notion that readers suppress irrelevant information during reading (e.g., Gernsbacher & Faust, 1991;Gernsbacher, Keysar, Robertson, & Werner, 2001;Linderholm et al, 2004). Therefore, it is possible that the outcome sentence in the control condition in these experiments might have led the reader away from thinking about the target spatial information because it was no longer relevant, decreasing its availability.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

Causal coherence and the availability of locations and objects during narrative comprehension

2005

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The aim of this study was to examine whether locations of objects are encoded and available to the reader at different points in a narrative, depending on their causal relevance. Participants in five experiments read narratives in which the spatial relation between an object and its location either did or did not provide a causal explanation for a later critical event. Object and location target words were presented to the participants immediately before or after the critical event. Speeded recognition response times to target words demonstrated that both locations and objects were reactivated, but only after they became causally relevant. The results suggest that the causal structure of a text can influence the availability of spatial information and that at least some spatial relations are encoded during reading and are available to the reader when they are needed to build coherence.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

Causal coherence and the availability of locations and objects during narrative comprehension

2005

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“…sharks are tenacious) but not sentences that refer to properties that are irrelevant to the metaphor's meaning (e.g. sharks are good swimmers; Gernsbacher, Keysar, Robertson, & Werner, 2001). Taken together, the aforementioned studies suggest that online metaphor comprehension hinges on accessing the appropriate sense of the vehicle.…”

Section: Semantics Metaphor Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novel metaphor comprehension: Semantic neighbourhood density interacts with concreteness

Al-Azary

2016

Mem Cogn

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Previous research suggests that metaphor comprehension is affected both by the concreteness of the topic and vehicle and their semantic neighbours (Kintsch, 2000;Xu, 2010). However, studies have yet to manipulate these 2 variables simultaneously. To that end, we composed novel metaphors manipulated on topic concreteness and semantic neighbourhood density (SND) of topic and vehicle. In Experiment 1, participants rated the metaphors on the suitability (e.g. sensibility) of their topic-vehicle pairings. Topic concreteness interacted with SND such that participants rated metaphors from sparse semantic spaces to be more sensible than those from dense semantic spaces and preferred abstract topics over concrete topics only for metaphors from dense semantic spaces. In Experiments 2 and 3, we used presentation deadlines and found that topic concreteness and SND affect the online processing stages associated with metaphor comprehension. We discuss how the results are aligned with established psycholinguistic models of metaphor comprehension.Keywords Language comprehension . Psycholinguistics . Semantics . Metaphor processingIn metaphor, unrelated concepts are paired to create a meaningful relation. For example, in time is money, the topic, or first concept, time and the vehicle, or second concept, money, are semantically distinct but the statement is nonetheless comprehensible even though literally untrue. Given that the topic and vehicle are unrelated, they each refer to a wide range of properties which vary in their relevance to the created meaning of the metaphor. Understanding a metaphor requires emphasizing the properties relevant to its meaning while suppressing the irrelevant ones (Black, 1962). For example, when reading a metaphor such as some lawyers are sharks, irrelevant property primes (e.g. sharks can be blue) hinder processing whereas relevant property primes (e.g. sharks can be ruthless) facilitate processing, as compared to no primes (McGlone & Manfredi, 2001). Moreover, metaphor primes (e.g. that defense lawyer is a shark) facilitate reading target sentences that refer to properties which are relevant to the metaphor's meaning (e.g. sharks are tenacious) but not sentences that refer to properties that are irrelevant to the metaphor's meaning (e.g. sharks are good swimmers; Gernsbacher, Keysar, Robertson, & Werner, 2001). Taken together, the aforementioned studies suggest that online metaphor comprehension hinges on accessing the appropriate sense of the vehicle. Psycholinguistic models characterize the semantic processing of the topic and vehicle needed for metaphor comprehension (see Gibbs & Colston, 2012, for a review of such models). Of these models, one of the most comprehensive is Kintsch's (2000Kintsch's ( , 2001Kintsch's ( , 2008) predication algorithm, which we will discuss below.The predication algorithm models the meaning of argument-predicate sentences, of which metaphor is an example, in semantic space (Kintsch, 2001). In this approach, latent semantic analysis (LSA) is used to model ...

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“…Results testifying to the role of working memory and inhibitory control in understanding metaphorical content were also obtained by Blasko and Trich (1997;cited in Blasko, 1999), Monetta and Pell (2007), and Gernsbacher, Keysar, Robertson, and Werner (2001).…”

Section: Working Memory and Inhibitory Control In Metaphor Processingmentioning

confidence: 52%

Processing Metaphors in the Elderly: Does Valence Matter?

Bartczak

2017

Psychology of Language and Communication

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Much evidence from theory and research points towards difficulties in processing metaphors by elderly people. These difficulties are usually associated with working memory and inhibitory control deficits observed in this age group, as these very functions play a crucial part in efficient metaphor processing. However, results of research on understanding metaphorical content by elderly people are inconclusive. The following article reviews studies showing that metaphor processing relies on a set of complex variables, which might explain the inconclusiveness of previous results. Though we acknowledge the role of interindividual factors (differences in cognitive functioning among the elderly), we focus on the properties of the metaphor stimuli themselves, especially those of conventionalization and valence, as they might influence the processing of verbal metaphors by people in older age groups.

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The Role of Suppression and Enhancement in Understanding Metaphors☆

Cited by 145 publications

References 69 publications

Causal coherence and the availability of locations and objects during narrative comprehension

Causal coherence and the availability of locations and objects during narrative comprehension

Novel metaphor comprehension: Semantic neighbourhood density interacts with concreteness

Processing Metaphors in the Elderly: Does Valence Matter?

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