Automatic and attentional processes in the comprehension of unfamiliar metaphors

Automatic and Attentional Processes in the Comprehension of

Unfamiliar Metaphors

J E F F R E Y CONEY AND ANDREA L A N G E M u r d o c h U n i v e r s i t y

The present study employed priming techniques to investigate whether unfamiliar metaphors are understood automatically, or whether controlled processes are required for comprehension. Priming sentences were presented to 76 participants in a naming task and vocal RT (reaction time) to target words was recorded. Target words were associates of the 120 metaphors used in the stimulus set. SOA (stimulus onset asynchrony) was manipulated in order to permit the measurement of both automatic and attentional priming (375ms, 750ms, and 1,500ms). Four priming conditions en- abled a comparison between metaphoric, literal, and neutral contexts, and an unrelated (baseline) condition. The data revealed a strong priming effect for metaphors at an SOA of 1,500ms, but no effects at either of the shorter SOAs. These results indicate that, in the absence of supporting context, unfamiliar metaphors are not processed automatically. Comprehension of such linguistic phenomena apparently requires attentional processing. The findings have implications for direct processing theories of metaphor comprehension.

F qgurative language is ubiquitous in communication. Hoffman and Honeck (1980) suggest that, while speaking, people utter four figures of speech per minute--an

average of 21 million such utterances in a lifetime. Gibbs (1994) proposed that one "unique metaphor" is constructed every 25 words in speech. It is therefore understand- able that the form and use of metaphor has been widely researched in fields as diverse as artificial intelligence (Way, 1991), linguistics (Lakoff, 1987), psycholinguistics (Glucksberg, 2001), and cognitive psychology (Tourangeau & Sternberg, 1982). Re- searchers have primarily been interested in investigating how metaphor is comprehended. More specifically, they have sought to identify which cognitive processes underlie the comprehension of metaphor and whether these processes differ from those involved in literal language.

In the present study, we address the question of the automaticity of the processes underlying comprehension of metaphor. This is a critical question in relation to any aspect of language, because the processes supporting language represent a complex amalgam of automatic and attentional mechanisms. Some linguistic tasks, such as assembling or analyzing speech sounds, are automatic largely by virtue of innate brain mechanisms. Others, such as matching letter shapes to sound and meaning in skilled reading, acquire automaticity through long practice (Hasher & Zacks, 1979). Unravelling the meaning of a complex and unfamiliar text or set of verbal instructions, however,

Current Psychology: Developmental �9 Learning �9 Personality �9 Social Summer 2006, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 93-119.

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obviously requires close attention and automatic processes can play only a supporting role in such tasks. While many low-level automatic processes, especially those that depend upon innate brain functions, are clearly not normally part of conscious awareness, the question of the extent to which we may be aware of automatic processing in any given situation is something of a moot point. For this reason, whether or not a process is automatic is defined, not in terms of conscious awareness, but in terms of the extent to which that process relies on attentional initiation, monitoring, or control. From this perspective, it is clear that language processes range across a broad con- tinuttm from fully automatic to those that necessitate the application of concentrated attention. In this study, we ask where the comprehension of metaphor lies on that continuum.

Approaches to metaphor may be subsumed under two opposing theoretical posi- tions. The traditional view (Thomas & Mareschal, 2001) is represented by the assumption that (1) comprehension is built on literal language, (2) metaphor comprehension is more difficult than the comprehension of literal language, and (3) comprehension of metaphor entails additional stages and/or mechanisms over and above those employed to comprehend literal language. The contemporary perspective, on the other hand, assumes that metaphor is fundamental to language and thus does not require special processes or additional effort (Way, 1991).

The essence of these separate perspectives is captured in Blasko and Connine's (1993) distinction between direct and indirect models of metaphor processing. The indirect models of metaphor processing are represented by what Glucksberg (2001) terms standard pragmatic theory, which assumes that metaphors are somehow anomalous or defective, in that they make no sense from a purely literal perspective. This view implies that a literal interpretation always precedes a nonliteral reading and that additional processing or special processes are required for understanding metaphorical statements (Thomas & Mareschal, 2001). Searle (1979), for example, proposed a three-stage model in which a literal interpretation is always attempted first during language processing. He argued that when a statement is found to be obviously defective if taken literally, the listener or reader will use some alternative process to com- pute a figurative interpretation. Searle's staged processing theory has, however, been attacked in the literature by researchers who claim to have evidence contrary to the model.

Perhaps one of the most influential investigations into the validity of Searle's staged processing theory was conducted by Ortony et al. (1978). Participants in their first experiment were presented with a series of sentences that could be interpreted in a number of ways. These ambiguous sentences were preceded by contextual information that biased interpretation of each sentence toward either a literal or metaphorical meaning. As a further manipulation, contexts were either short (mean length of six words), or long (mean length of 45 words). Participants were required to indicate manually when they had read and understood the target sentence. Ortony et al. found no significant differences in response time between the literal and metaphor conditions when they were preceded by the long context. In the short context condition, however, response times were significantly slower for the metaphoric interpretations. The au-

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thors concluded that the staged processing model was not valid in conditions where sufficient context existed to support a metaphoric interpretation. Nevertheless, this study had a number of methodological weaknesses. It is questionable, to begin with, whether it was reasonable to accept participants' subjective decisions regarding whether they understood the statements. Further, the comprehension of ambiguous literal statements in a figurative context may be quite a different process from interpreting obviously anomalous or literally false statements such as "the road is a snake."

Other studies, such as Inhoff, Lima, and Carroll (1984), used reading times and viewing times of critical words to infer comprehension of metaphoric stimuli. These researchers also concluded that metaphors are comprehended as efficiently as literal statements when supported by appropriate, extensive context. Gerrig and Healy (1983) employed a similar methodology and reported similar findings. Using reading times as the dependent variable, the authors concluded that readers arrive at a literal interpretation when there is insufficient context for an appropriate metaphoric interpretation. However, the assumption upon which these studies are based--that reading time is equivalent to, or accurately reflects, comprehension--is potentially misleading. Dura- tion of gaze, although an undoubtedly useful measure, does not necessarily reliably reflect the time required to achieve comprehension.

Direct processing models of metaphor comprehension, on the other hand, share an assumption that a literal interpretation is not a necessary stage in the identification and comprehension of metaphor (Blasko & Connine, 1993). On this view, metaphor may be processed directly from the information at hand. Although based upon a common premise, particular models have been developed from a variety of empirical methods, and their authors propose different mechanisms to account for metaphor comprehension. These models can be subsumed under three broad approaches. The first of these is the comparison view, which assumes that metaphors are first transformed into comparison statements and then the features of the metaphor vehicle are compared to the features of the metaphor topic. Two comparison models have received particular attention in the literature: the salience-imbalance model (Ortony, 1979a,b) and the struc- tural alignment model (Gentner & Wolff, 1997; Wolff & Gentner, 2000).

A second broad approach, which has been the subject of particular attention during the last decade, is the interactive view. According to this view, the comprehension of metaphor is not simply a process by which an existing but previously unnoticed meaning is discovered. Rather, metaphors actually create similarities during comprehension through an interaction between the semantic properties of the topic and vehicle terms in the metaphor. The class-inclusion model (Glucksberg, 2001; Glucksberg, Brown, & McGlone, 1993; Glucksberg, McGlone, & Manfredi, 1997) is the dominant interactive model. Finally, the conceptual view of metaphor has led to the development of the idea that there are a set of conceptual metaphors that shape our thinking and our use of literal and figurative language.

Although space does not permit a detailed examination of the competing models developed under each of these approaches, it is possible to extract some general conclusions from this body of research. It has been proposed that mechanisms of metaphor comprehension are common to literal language (e.g., Bowdle & Genter,


1997; Burgess & Chiarello, 1996; Gemsbacher et al., 2001; Keysar, 1989; Wolff & Gentner, 2000), and that comprehending metaphor takes no longer than understanding literal comparisons in context (e.g., Gildea & Glucksberg, 1983; Inhoff et al., 1984; Ortony, 1980; Ortony et al., 1978). Further, it is held that comprehension of metaphor is not optional (e.g., Gentner & Wolff, 1997; Glucksberg, Gildea, & Bookin, 1982; Wolff & Gentner, 2000) and that metaphorical meanings are automatically computed, in the sense that apprehension of meaning does not require an explicit and effortful analysis (e.g., Gildea & Glucksberg, 1983; Glucksberg, 2001; Keysar, 1989).

It is possible to raise a number of theoretical and methodological objections to these conclusions. For example, it seems intuitively unlikely that the meanings of unfamiliar metaphors are computed automatically, especially in the absence of any preceding context. There have, however, been few investigations of metaphor processing that have used methodologies appropriate to the assessment of automatic processes. In many experiments, participants have had to decide when comprehension was achieved and then paraphrase or articulate that interpretation. Indeed, the majority of studies have investigated metaphor comprehension in contexts where only explicit, attentional processing could be measured. Glucksberg (2001) observed that the recorded reading times in some of these studies (e.g., Ortony et al., 1978) were disproportionately slow, suggesting that processes additional to those involved in normal reading or listening were reflected in the data. Delays may have been caused, for example, by the require- ment for subjects to decide that they had reached an acceptable interpretation. Studies relying on reading times and eye-tracking measures to infer comprehension may also be problematic (Haberlandt, 1994). Glucksberg et al. (1982) used a version of the Stroop interference task to measure the time taken by individuals to judge whether metaphoric statements were literally true or not. This technique, however, also only tapped attentional processes.

Gibbs (1999) noted that there is a clear difference between the processes that underpin metaphor comprehension and "the products that we consciously think about when we read or hear metaphors" (p. 37). He argued that numerous cognitive processes occur, mostly unconsciously, as we comprehend metaphors, and pointed to the need to attempt a more fine-grained analysis of these processes.

In this context, Blasko and Connine's (1993) study deserves particular attention. In a significant departure from more traditional methods of studying metaphor, these investigators used a priming procedure to investigate the course of metaphor processing over short periods of time in a more precise and controlled manner than previously attempted. Metaphors, in the form X is a Y, were presented auditorily in four experiments. When targets were presented immediately at the offset of the metaphor vehicle term, facilitation was observed in both the literal and the metaphor conditions for highly familiar metaphors. For metaphors with a low familiarity rating, facilitation was only observed in the literal condition; response times were longer in the metaphor condition than the control condition.

These results were replicated in a second experiment in which target presentation was delayed by 300ms. A different set of low familiarity metaphors were then presented at an interstimulus interval (ISI) of 750ms. A small, non-significant, facilitation

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effect was observed in the metaphor condition in this experiment. When the results from two of the stimuli were excluded, based on a post hoc analysis of metaphor comprehensibility (by different participants), the facilitation increased to 35ms, which was significant. The authors suggested, therefore, that an interpretation of low familiarity metaphors had been reached by the time 750ms had elapsed.

The results of this study provide some insight into the question of whether direct processing of metaphors can occur independent of contextual support. The evidence seems to suggest that the meaning of highly familiar metaphors is available immediately, even when there is no appropriate preceding context. Apparently, the metaphorical and literal interpretations are processed in parallel. The authors concluded, therefore, that the standard pragmatic view (Searle, 1979) fails to explain processing of highly familiar metaphors. More interestingly, the results suggest that unfamiliar metaphors are not processed automatically, at least in the absence of context, and that some measure of attentional processing is required to evoke the meaning of the metaphor.

This conclusion must be regarded as tentative, at best. Apart from the post hoc character of the result, this study was subject to several methodological problems that limit outcome reliability. To begin with, Blasko and Connine embedded each metaphor in a longer, neutral sentence, with between four and nine words following the metaphor vehicle. The presentation of the visual target coincided with the offset of the metaphor vehicle and there may thus have been conflicting processing demands on participants. They were required to continue listening to the sentence while performing a lexical decision in respect of the target and generating an appropriate response. Although it is not possible to predict what impact this may have had on the comprehension of metaphor, a more natural task load might have been beneficial in obtaining accurate data. The fact that priming stimuli and subject sample were varied across the several experiments in this study also makes it difficult to interpret the results. The difference in response time may have been due to the changing interstimulus intervals, but might also reflect the characteristics of the different stimulus sets or the variability in subject samples.

There was, however, a more troubling difficulty with this study. In keeping with other studies of metaphor and idiom processing (e.g., Cacciari & Glucksberg, 1994), the investigators developed three experimental conditions (metaphoric, literal, and control) in this study. Following Tabossi (1988), the investigators presented the metaphor in a neutral context, and used a different target word to represent each of the experimental conditions. In the literal condition, the target word was an associate of the vehicle term of the metaphor. In the metaphor condition, the target was deemed to "represent a central characteristic of the metaphoric interpretation" (Blasko & Connine, 1993: 298). The control target words were unrelated to any of the other terms. This design has the potential to confound the results of the study, even though targets were matched on characteristics such as frequency and length. It is very well known in the word priming literature that, if RT (reaction time) to targets is the dependent variable, then it is essential to ensure that targets are constant across conditions. Given the complexity of language, matching on such attributes as frequency and length is unlikely to be sufficient in the present context. Consider the metaphor "happiness is

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gold," for example. The metaphor target used was precious, the literal target was shiny, and the control target was process. In the Nelson, McEvoy, & Schreiber (1998) word norms, both the literal and metaphoric targets are associates of the word gold, while the control target is unassociated. The principal difficulty here is that the literal and metaphoric targets are associated to different degrees with gold, and this can be expected to translate into differences in RT facilitation (e.g., Coney, 2002).

The present study set out to investigate the time course of metaphor comprehension for unfamiliar metaphors with no supporting context. The primary question of interest was: how soon after presentation of a metaphor does activation of metaphoric meaning occur? In particular, is metaphoric meaning automatically activated, as some researchers have suggested, or are attentional processes required to comprehend unfamiliar metaphors even when short and relatively simple? A major aim in this study was to rectify some of the methodological deficiencies in Blasko and Connine's investigation, in an effort to assess the validity of their conclusion. We delay a more specific account of our hypotheses until the design and procedure have been presented, in which context they may be more readily appreciated.

METHOD

Participants

Participants were recruited from the population of undergraduate psychology stu- dents at Murdoch University. Data from 76 participants, comprising 12 males and 64 females, were collected. The ages of these participants ranged from 18 years to 54 years, with a mean of 27.5 years (SD = 9.6 years). Participants spoke English as a first language, and had normal or corrected-to-normal vision.

Design and Stimulus Materials

The primary experimental measure in this study was the response latency for naming target words. A 3 x 4 repeated measures design was employed. Two experimental variables were manipulated: type of priming sentence, with four levels (metaphor, literal, unrelated, and neutral); and SOA (stimulus onset asynchrony), with three levels (375ms, 750ms, and 1,500ms). Experimental stimuli consisted of 480 sentences that served as primes, and 120 target words. The priming sentences were 120 nominal metaphors in the form x is a y (e.g., "The road is a snake"); 120 literally true sentences (e.g, "The dugite is a snake"); 120 unrelated sentences (e.g, "The boy is a truant"); and 120 neutral sentences (e.g, "The next word is snake"). All neutral sentences began with "The next word is." A list of the priming sentences, showing the relationship between sentence types, is provided in Appendix A.

The construction of the stimulus set began with the selection of 158 metaphors from among the stimuli used in previous metaphor studies (e.g., Gildea & Glucksberg, 1983; Glucksberg et al., 1997; Pynte et al., 1996; Wolff & Gentner, 2000). Only metaphors that could not be interpreted literally were included in the exercise. Thus,

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while metaphors such as "The road is a snake." were acceptable, those such as "He had a lot on his plate." were not.

A rating study was conducted to assess the familiarity of potential metaphor stimuli, and to generate appropriate target words for the experiment. The rating panel comprised 16 university graduates who spoke English as a first language, and who had an Australian, British, or North American cultural background. None of the raters were included in the participant sample for the main study. Each rater completed a questionnaire in which they (1) rated the familiarity of each metaphor, and (2) provided an interpretation for each metaphor. Completion of the questionnaires required approximately two hours.

In the familiarity-rating section of the questionnaire, participants rated each metaphor on a 7-point Likert scale. A rating of "1" indicated that the metaphor was not at all familiar, while a rating of "7" indicated that the metaphor was very familiar. Following completion of the questionnaires, the mean familiarity ratings were calcu- lated for each metaphor. All metaphors with a median rating greater than six (seven percent of the total) were excluded from the experimental set. In the final set of 120 metaphors, familiarity ratings ranged from 1.06 to 5.19, with a mean of three (SD = 1.03).

In the metaphor interpretation task, participants considered the vehicle term (the final word or predicate of the sentence), both in its particular metaphoric context, and in a literal context. They were first asked to identify a single word that most appropriately captured the meaning of each metaphor. They were then requested to identify the first word evoked when considering only the literal meaning of the vehicle term of the metaphor. The words generated in this section of the questionnaire were used as target words for the experiment.

There was generally a clear distinction between the metaphoric targets, and the literal associates offered by participants. There was also reasonable consistency in the targets provided by participants. It was usually apparent that, even when participants suggested different words to define a metaphor, they were identifying the same broad concept. A metaphor was excluded from the stimulus pool when there was no agree- ment regarding the interpretation, or when there was substantial overlap between the words offered in both the metaphor and literal contexts. For example, participants suggested the words reflect or reflection in both contexts for the metaphor "history is a mirror." The word reflection is a primary associate of mirror, which suggests that the word mirror, independent of context, was evoking the metaphor target.

The most frequently offered target word for each metaphor was checked against word-association norms (Nelson et al., 1998) to ensure that it was not a primary associate of the vehicle term. If it was a primary associate, the second most frequently suggested metaphoric term was considered and included only if it had a low association with the vehicle word. Thirty-seven vehicle terms did not appear in the word- association norms. These words were presented to eight participants who did not take part in the rating exercise or the main experiment. Participants were asked to consider the first word on the list and, as quickly as possible, to write down the words that came to mind. After one minute they were asked to stop writing if they had not already done


so, and requested to consider the next word on the list. The words generated in the word association exercise were checked against the 37 target words. If the proposed metaphor target appeared among the associates, the corresponding metaphor was excluded from the stimulus set.

An attempt was made to control the word length of targets. Nevertheless, it was regarded as critical that each target clearly represented the meaning of the metaphor, as understood by the majority of participants in the interpretation exercise. Thus, some variability was tolerated. A maximum length of 15 characters was established for both prime and target words, and this limit was not exceeded. Target words were repeated across all sentence conditions, minimizing the likelihood of confounding effects from varying word lengths. Target words were, on average, 7.36 (SD = 2.18) letters in length. The mean frequency rating for targets (Kucera & Francis, 1967) was 47.82 (SD = 105.8), with a median of 13.00.

Once the 120 metaphors and target words were selected, sentences were developed for each of the other experimental conditions (see Appendix A). As far as possible, sentences were matched for the total number of words, word lengths, and grammatical structure. Care was taken to ensure that words in the unrelated sentences were not associates of the target word. Thus, four lists of 120 sentences and their accompanying targets were constructed. Each list contained sentences and targets for one experimental condition only. Each list was then divided into 30 groups of four sentence/target sets. Taking each of the 30 groups in turn, the four sentence/target sets in each list were recombined across lists to produce four new groups of four sentence/target sets each. Each of the four new groups contained exactly one instance of each experimental condition, and no target word was used more than once in the group. The 30 new sets of four groups of four sentence/target sets were then combined into four separate lists of 120 sentence/target combinations. The purpose of this manipulation was to ensure that each subject could be provided with a set of stimuli in which target words were not repeated, while permitting each target word to be presented in every experimental condition over the sample as a whole.

Procedure

Participants attended individual testing sessions held in a screened area of a research laboratory illuminated by fluorescent and natural light. The experiment control application was run on an Amiga 1200 microcomputer with a Commodore 1084S video monitor providing a display resolution of 640 x 200 pixels. This system controlled the presentation of stimuli, timing, and sequencing of trials, and the collection of data. The system was linked to a separate computer on which the experimenter could monitor participant performance during each testing session.

A microphone linked to a custom-built voice-activated switch captured the participant's verbal responses to targets. The switch was triggered by the first pho- neme of the participant's response in each trial. The latency between target presentation and the participant's response was recorded as the participant's response time. A

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lag of 150ms was built into the program to ensure that extraneous sounds did not trigger the switch and record erroneous times.

At the commencement of a testing session, participants were provided with written instructions for the experiment, and given the opportunity to clarify anything about which they were unsure. This process took approximately five minutes. Participants were seated at a distance of 60cm from the stimulus display screen. They then completed a practice set of trials that were constructed from metaphors discarded from the rating exercise, together with corresponding literal, unrelated, and neutral examples. During the practice set, the voice switch was monitored to ensure that vocalization of the target was reliably detected. After 20 trials, participants were asked if they were ready to proceed with the main experiment.

Each trial began with a blue cross in the center of the screen. This remained for 750ms, after which the screen went blank for 250ms. A sentence fragment in pale yellow text appeared in the center of the screen (e.g., "The road is a"). When the participant pressed the space bar, the final word of the sentence, also in pale yellow text, immediately appeared (e.g., "snake"). After a delay, the target word was displayed in white text alongside the sentence (e.g., "winding"). The duration of the delay was determined by the particular SOA condition for that trial. The target remained on the screen until the participant named the word. If the voice switch was not triggered by a verbal response, the target remained on the screen for 1,500ms. Participants' responses were monitored on the linked computer. Errors were carefully noted if participants misnamed a word, or some other sound triggered the voice switch and led to the recording of an inaccurate response time for any trial. Stimuli were displayed in a plain, custom, sans-serif font similar to Arial.

Each subject was exposed to one of the four stimulus sets constructed for the experiment, comprising 30 sentences from each of the four experimental conditions and their corresponding target words. No subject was exposed to any given target word more than once. The order of presentation of stimuli was randomized on-line prior to the start of each session. Completion of the set required, on average, 13 minutes. The four stimulus sets were alternated across participants in a balanced se- quence, such that 19 participants were exposed to each set over the course of the experiment.

At the conclusion of the computer-based session, participants completed a recognition test for the stimulus set they had completed. Participants ticked those sentences that they recognized from the experimental set, and marked with a cross any sentence that they failed to recognize. This task took participants only a minute or two to complete and was provided to check that the sentences had been appropriately attended to during the experiment. An analysis of performance on the recognition test showed an acceptable level of correct recognitions (hits and correct rejections), with a mean of 82% (SD = 9). An a priori criterion of 65% was applied to individual scores (Tabossi, 1988). Two participants failed to meet this criterion. The error data for these subjects, and the time they took to complete the experiment, were reviewed to determine if they were outliers. These participants were not outliers on these measures, and


observations made during testing indicated that they had followed instructions. Hence it was concluded that these participants might simply have adopted a particularly strict criterion for acknowledging recognition, and there was insufficient evidence to ex- clude their data from the final results.

RESULTS

Our aim in this study was to evaluate metaphor processing separately at each of the three SOAs. This was based on the rationale that 375ms represented the opportunity to assess automatic processing, 1,500ms was long enough to permit attentional processing, and 750ms constituted an intermediate, transitional, stage between these two extremes (Neely, 1991). Within each of these SOAs, we utilized three control conditions in addition to the metaphor condition. Unrelated sentences contained no material related to the target words and thus constituted the baseline condition for the study (e.g., The seal is a performer--PASSIONATE). Neutral sentences featured the same terminating word used in the literal and metaphoric sentences, but contained no relevant sentential context (e.g., The next word is volcano--PASSIONATE). Given the difficulty of avoiding semantic associations between metaphor vehicles and suitable probes (despite our efforts to minimize this), it was considered important to obtain some measure of the "raw" effect of this association. It was expected that the neutral condition would provide an estimate of pure semantic priming between the terminating word of the sentence and the target. The literal sentences were intended to measure any additional priming of the target that might accrue from the embedding of the terminating word in a relevant, but non-metaphoric, sentential context (e.g., Lava flowed from a volcano--PASSIONATE). Finally, the metaphoric sentences (e.g., The lover is a volcano--PASSIONATE) were intended to measure any additional facilitation accruing from the fact that the terminating word was embedded in a metaphor, rather than an ordinary sentence.

Two separate screening processes were applied to the raw experimental data. Firstly, all incorrect responses to trials were manually coded as errors, and excluded from analyses. These errors represented all cases where the voice-activated switch was triggered by an incorrect or inappropriate response. Examples include mispronounced words, the naming of incorrect words, and correct responses that were preceded by sounds such as "urn." The mean error rate was 1.1% (SD = 1.1) of total responses. In the second stage of screening, all responses falling outside two standard deviations from the mean were rejected, resulting in rejection of 4.7% of all responses.

Even though the focus in this experiment was on the separate effects at different SOAs, especially 375ms and 1,500ms, the analysis commenced with an overall 3 x 4 repeated measures analysis of variance on the data illustrated in Figure 1. This revealed two main effects. A Mauchley test, however, indicated a violation of the assumption of compound symmetry of the variance-covariance matrix in both main effects. The significance levels were therefore corrected by using the Greenhouse- Geisser algorithm to adjust degrees of freedom. After adjustment, there was a strong main effect of SOA, (F(1.508, 113.114) = 104.281, p < .001), indicating that the time

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taken by participants to name the target words was affected by the delay between the onset of the final word of the sentence, and the onset of the target. Mean RT in the long and medium SOA conditions was 596ms in each case, and 54ms faster than in the short SOA condition. ANOVA also showed a significant main effect of sentence type, (F(2.535, 190.090) = 3.314, p = .028). Overall response times were very similar for metaphor (611ms), literal (612ms), and neutral (613ms) sentences, while response times to unrelated sentences were, as expected, somewhat slower (60 lms).

Planned comparisons were then carried out to determine whether sentence conditions differed significantly at each SOA (Howell, 1982). These took the form, initially, of one-way ANOVAs of simple effects at each level of SOA. These ANOVAs revealed no significant difference between sentence conditions at an SOA of 375ms or 750ms (see Figure 1), and so no further analysis of these conditions will be reported.

FIGURE 1 Mean Response Time (ms) as a Function of Priming Sentence Type and Stimulus Onset

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There was, however, a significant main effect of sentence type at an SOA of 1,500ms (F(3,225) = 3.380, p = .019). Paired-samples t-tests were then carried out to localize the origin of this effect. The only significant difference to appear occurred between unrelated and metaphor sentence types (t(75) = 3.446, p = .001), suggesting that the context created by metaphoric sentences successfully activated associates at an SOA of 1,500ms.

DISCUSSION

The purpose of this study was to investigate the time course of comprehension for unfamiliar metaphors in the absence of any accompanying context. The primary research question considered whether automatic processes are sufficient to understand these metaphors, or whether attentional processes are required for their comprehension. The results provided no evidence that such metaphors are processed automatically. There was no priming of metaphoric meaning in the shorter SOA conditions; facilitation in the metaphor condition was observed only at the longest SOA. The results of the study thus support the hypothesis that attentional mechanisms are required to process unfamiliar metaphors without context, even when short in length and simple in structure.

The results were, however, not quite as clear-cut as might have been desired. While, at 1,500ms SOA, there was a clear difference between the metaphoric and unrelated (that is, baseline) sentences, both neutral and literal sentences were characterized by mean response times that fell roughly halfway between these extremes, as shown in Figure 1. While the data suggest a trend toward facilitation of responses to neutral and literal sentences at the longest SOA, the difference between these conditions and the baseline did not reach significance.

This does not, in itself, constitute a problem. The purpose of including neutral and literal sentences was to measure any non-metaphoric activation of targets by the vehicle term, such as semantic priming--perhaps aided and abetted, in the case of literal sentences, by some form of contextual facilitation. Considerable care was taken in the process of constructing the stimulus set to avoid targets that were primary associates of the sentence-final word. Nonetheless, it was not feasible, in the context of the materials available, to eliminate all possibility of semantic association. While most non- metaphoric sentences were unlikely to facilitate responses to target words (e.g., The next word is sponges--GREEDY or Cleaners use sponges--GREEDY), some clearly possessed the potential to do so (e.g., "The next word is radios- -BROADCAST" or "Wirelesses are radios--BROADCAST"). In the event, it would seem that our efforts to reduce the possibility of association were technically successful in that, despite an apparent trend toward facilitation, neutral and literal conditions did not significantly differ from baseline at any SOA.

Unfortunately, the difference between metaphoric and either neutral or literal conditions also failed to reach significance, which means that a simple associative contribution to priming in the metaphoric condition cannot be ruled out. We had anticipated, in designing the experiment, that if neutral and/or literal sentences evoked facilitation to

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target words, there would be statistically significant differences between these conditions and the baseline and metaphoric sentences, respectively. We believe that the uncertainty in the present results stems from an attenuation of priming effects deriving from our use of a naming task as the dependent variable. We chose this measure because we were principally concerned to determine whether any evidence could be found to support the notion that relatively unfamiliar metaphors, without accompanying context, could evoke target activation through automatic processes. There is good reason to believe that pronunciation, (unlike, for example, lexical decision), minimizes post-lexical semantic matching strategies and only generates facilitation through automatic spreading activation and expectancy effects (Neely, 1991; Neely & Keefe, 1989). Since expectancy effects do not have time to develop at an SOA of 375ms, we considered that the naming task constituted an excellent test of the effect of automatic processes at this SOA.

The cost of using this measure, however, lies in the relative suppression of post- lexical semantic matching strategies. This severely attenuates the magnitude of facilitation that might otherwise be observed under conditions favoring attentional processing (for similar suppressive effects of pronunciation on priming in a variety of other circumstances, see Seidenberg et al., 1984; Lorch, Balota, & Stamm, 1986; Keefe & Neely, 1990). We conclude, therefore, that our results provide reliable evidence that unfamiliar metaphors, in the absence of context, do not activate associations via automatic processes--at the cost of some uncertainty in relation to the precise contribution of semantic association to "metaphoric" activation under conditions favoring attentional processing.

Thus, we conclude from the present findings that the comprehension of unfamiliar metaphors builds with time over durations of a second or so. The observation that metaphoric priming was restricted to the 1,500ms SOA condition indicates that substantial activation of the metaphoric meaning only occurred when participants had sufficient time to process and interpret the metaphoric sentence. The absence of significant priming of metaphoric meaning at the 750ms SOA in the present study is, nonetheless, contrary to the findings of Blasko and Connine (1993). In their study, RTs to targets in the metaphor condition were 19ms faster than the control condition at 750ms, but this facilitation was not statistically significant. As noted earlier these researchers culled data from two metaphors that were rated hard to comprehend, and succeeded in demonstrating a significant priming effect of 35ms. This led them to conclude that the comprehension of unfamiliar metaphors may be completed within 750ms, which is at odds with our finding.

The apparent discrepancy between the present results and those from Blasko and Connine's study should be interpreted with caution. Aside from the post hoc selection of stimulus material, it is also noteworthy that these researchers used a substantially smaller stimulus set than employed in the present study. While we used 120 different metaphors, Blasko and Connine used only 12 in their unfamiliar-metaphor conditions. The inordinate influence on statistical significance of two "rogue" stimuli suggests that their stimulus set may not have been large enough, relative to the inherent variability in material of this nature, to permit generalization of their findings. In the present


study, although the range of rated familiarity was wider, our stimuli were more repre- sentative of the range of unfamiliar metaphors that might be typically encountered during communication. Our results suggest that the activation of meaning for unfamiliar metaphors is neither automatic, nor achieved within 750ms.

Furthermore, although our results suggest that unfamiliar metaphors can be understood after 1,500ms, comprehension may still be building at this stage. This would be consistent with studies that have used reading times, and judgments regarding the literal truth of metaphoric statements, as dependent variables. These studies have generally focused on contrasting the reading or response times for metaphors against those for literal comparisons. With participants' response times ranging from 1,250ms (Gildea & Glucksberg, 1983) to over three seconds (Inhoff et al., 1984), these studies suggest attentional processing of metaphors. As discussed previously, though, these RTs may be contaminated by factors independent of comprehension and may not be reliable measures of processing speed.

The present findings are clearly not relevant to the comprehension of highly familiar metaphors. It is well established that the more times a word has been encountered, the more easily activated are its internal representations (Carr et al., 1979), and the faster it may be accessed from the lexicon. The effect of familiarity on more complex structures such as metaphor, therefore, might be substantial. Once one has encotmtered and interpreted a metaphor, it will be quickly processed and comprehended. Gentner and Bowdle (2001) have suggested that repeated exposure to a metaphor will lead to the development of "stock expressions" (p. 229). Once interpretations of metaphors such as "time is money" become widely recognized, they become part of the idiom, and it is thought that these meanings may then be stored as a unit in the lexicon (e.g., Gibbs, 1985).

The finding that attentional processes are engaged in the comprehension of simple unfamiliar metaphors has implications both for the philosophy of direct processing models and for more pragmatic concerns about the mechanics of metaphor comprehension. Direct processing theorists have proposed that metaphors can be comprehended quickly, even without supporting context. The answer to the implicit question of how quickly has not been possible to determine from studies which, for example, have employed reading speed as the dependent variable. These experiments have required participants to indicate the point at which they have understood metaphors, and this is something that cannot be done without explicit awareness. The data, therefore, have been restricted to the products of attentional processing. Nevertheless, numerous investigations employing measures such as reading speed have shown that there is little difference between metaphor and literal conditions (e.g., Schraw, 1995). This has been instrumental in promoting the view that equivalent effort is expended, the same processes are employed, and that processing is obligatory, for both literal and metaphoric statements.

Some (e.g., Keysar, 1989) have thus claimed that metaphor comprehension is automatic. This is inconsistent with the results of the present study. It is apparent that automatic spreading activation is unlikely to account for the comprehension of relatively unfamiliar metaphors. The structure of metaphor aligns two separate concepts

Coney andLange 107

from "disparate domains of knowledge" (Gentner & Bowdle, 2001: 223). These concepts may have no semantic association outside the context of the metaphor itself, and thus may share few associative links. The fact that the concepts are not from the same semantic field suggests that the processing load will be greater than for sentences comprised of concepts with a strong semantic association.

The present study was not designed to test the premises of indirect processing models. If, however, a literal interpretation were attempted early in the comprehension process as suggested in traditional models, a pattern of inhibition in the metaphor condition might have been evident in the short or medium SOA conditions. That is, if participants were looking for a literal meaning in the metaphors, they might have been slower to name the metaphoric target in the metaphor condition than in the unrelated condition. This did not occur at any of the time intervals employed in this study. Whether this may be considered evidence against the traditional view is not clear, but might be tested in future studies.

The roots of metaphor research are deeply imbedded in standard pragmatic theory, which proposes that literal interpretations take precedence over metaphoric interpretations (Keysar, 1989). Thus, the majority of models developed to account for metaphor comprehension have focused on those properties that arguably distinguish metaphors from literal comparisons. Similarly, most empirical work has compared comprehension of metaphor with that of literal comparisons. This study was not aimed at the explicit comparison of literal and metaphoric statements. The literal condition was included as a control, to ascertain whether placing the vehicle term in a literal context might affect the activation of the target word. It might nonetheless be instructive to make this comparison in a future study, if only to plot the time course of comprehension of literal statements under the same experimental conditions.


APPENDIX A

Stimulus sentences and target words used in the experiment. The four condit ions

presented be low were recombined into four sets o f stimuli such that no set contained

more than one instance o f a particular target word (e.g., winding), but all condit ions

were represented in equal proportions. Each participant was exposed to only one set o f

stimuli.

Metaphor Condition Literal Condition Unrelated Condition Neutral Condition

The road is a A dugite is a The boy is a snake snake truant winding winding winding

Slums are The swellings are Weekends are tumors tumors holidays growing growing growing

Contracts are Prisoners wear The horses are handcuffs handcuffs hacks binding binding binding

Gossips are Wirelesses are Crabs are a radios radios delicacy broadcast broadcast broadcast

A promise is a The punter likes to The stallion is a gamble gamble champion risk risk risk

Fortune is an A spy is an Mozart was a impostor impostor composer illusion illusion illusion

Lawyers are Cleaners use Winters are sponges sponges rainy greedy greedy greedy

Ferries are Engineers build Winners are bridges bridges lucky links links links

The next word is snake winding

The next word 1s tumors growing

The next word ~s handcuffs binding

The next word ~s radios broadcast

The next word ~s gamble risk

The next word is imposter illusion

The next word is sponges greedy

The next word is bridges links

Librarians are Some rodents are Tankers are The next word i mice mice large mice quiet quiet quiet quiet

A soldier is a The chess piece is a The girl is a pawn pawn rebel dispensable dispensable dispensable

The next word is pawn dispensable

Coney andLange 109


A l i e i s a A d i rk i sa is h o m e i s a dagger dagger caravan hurtful hurtful hu~ful

Inventors are Children have Dictators are mothers mothers tyrants creators creators creators

The next word is dagger hurtful

The next word 1s mothers creators

The child is a The calculator is a The warehouse is a The next word is computer computer theatre computer clever clever clever clever

The lawyer is an The echidna ate an The cycle is a ant ant tandem

busy busy busy

The teacher is a The circus hired a The plane is a clown clown Concorde entertainer entertainer entertainer

The next word is ant busy

The next word is clown entertainer

The dentist is a Buy meat from a The chocolate is a The next word is butcher butcher treat butcher cruel cruel cruel cruel

The mechanic is a King Kong was a A museum is an gorilla gorilla attraction uneducated uneducated uneducated

Deceit is an The army launched an The play is an ambush ambush epic betrayal betrayal betrayal

Detectives are Rabbits fear Heroes are ferrets ferrets revered inquisitive inquisitive inquisitive

Books are Hikers use Flowers are

compasses compasses fragrant guides guides guides

The next word is gorilla uneducated

The next word is ambush betrayal

The next word 1s terrets inquisitive

The next word is compasses guides

The landlord is a Count Dracula was a The crossword is a The next word is vampire vampire challenge vampire heartless heartless heartless heartless

Libraries are Kalgoorlie has Potatoes are goldmines goldmines vegetables rich rich rich

The next word is goldmines rich



Schools are Children love Sculptors carve zoos zoos stone chaos chaos chaos

Crime is a Cholera is a The girl is a disease disease twin prevalent prevalent prevalent

Anger is a Mt. Etna is a The chair is an volcano volcano antique volatile volatile volatile

Faith is a The castle is a James is a fortress fortress waiter security security security

A friend is an The boat has an The junk is an anchor anchor eyesore stable stable stable

The mind is a The painting is a The poem is a landscape landscape ballad open open open

Despair is a The bore is a Perth is a well well city deep deep deep

The salesman is a The fowl is a The parcel is a rooster rooster gift brash brash brash

The vacationer is a The goanna is a The banana is lizard lizard yellow basking basking basking

The worker is a Deer are prey for a The book is a lion lion paperback tireless tireless tireless

The veteran is a The hounds chased the The flower is a fox fox rose wily wily wily

The sentry is a The sign is on a The woman is an post post aunt still still still

The next word is ZOOS

chaos

The next word is disease prevalent

The next word is volcano volatile

The next word ~s fortress security

The next word is anchor stable

The next word is landscape open

The next word is well deep

The next word is rooster brash

The next word is lizard basking

The next word 1s lion tireless

The next word is fox wily

The next word is post still

Coney and Lange 111


The tutor is a The machine is a The prize is a robot robot trophy repetitive repetitive repetitive

The next word is robot repetitive

The student is a The trunk is a The house is an The next word is log log asset log stupid stupid stupid stupid

The lover is a Lava flowed from the The seal is a volcano volcano performer passionate passionate passionate

The next word is volcano passionate

The child is a The storm is a The dance is a The next word is tornado tornado ballet tornado wild wild wild wild

The woman is a The canary is a The buoy is a bird bird marker delicate delicate delicate

The relatives are Those birds are The neighbors are vultures vultures friends opportunist opportunist opportunist

The fighter was a The hunters shot a The puppet was a lion lion toy strong strong strong

The baby is a The sheep was a The paper is a lamb lamb tabloid gentle gentle gentle

Memories are Ornaments collect Exams are dust dust hard nothing nothing nothing

Schools are Pools have Children are filters filters small sorting sorting sorting

A good professor is an The water flows at an A major road is a oasis oasis highway rare rare rare

Icicles are Butchers use Actors are knives knives famous penetrate penetrate penetrate

The next word 1s bird delicate

The next word as vultures opportunist

The next word is lion strong

The next word is lamb gentle

The next word is dust nothing

The next word is filters sorting

The next word is an oasis rare

The next word ts knives penetrate



Greed is a The bird was a Snoring is a buzzard buzzard problem consuming consuming consuming

A butterfly is a Sun shone on a A biscuit is a rainbow rainbow snack beauty beauty beauty

Life is a Carpenters use a Singing is a chisel chisel pleasure hard hard hard

Power is The treatment is The student is penicillin penicillin absent protective protective protective

The marriage i s an The b ~ t i s i n an The fa rmer i san icebox icebox innovator unhappy unhappy unhappy

The next word is buzzard consuming

The next word is rainbow beauty

The next word is chisel hard

The next word ~s penicillin protective

The next word is icebox unhappy

Salesmen are Tractors are Ducks are The next word is bulldozers bulldozers poultry bulldozers pushy pushy pushy pushy

Lectures are Mothers sing Stocks are The next word ~s lullabies lullabies investments lullabies boring boring boring boring

The mayor is a The river has The radio is a The next word is jellyfish jellyfish distraction jellyfish weak weak weak weak

A debt is a An anchor is a A nimbus is a weight weight cloud handicap handicap handicap

The next word is weight handicap

Obligations are Hobbles are Pizzas are The next word is shackles shackles tasty shackles restriction restriction restriction restriction

Beauty is a The visa is a Smoke is a The next word is passport passport nuisance passport entry entry entry entry

Fame is a The tower is a Reading is a The next word 1s beacon beacon hobby beacon attraction attraction attraction attraction

Coney and Lange 113


The secretary is a The storm became a The cow is a whirlwind whirlwind herbivore efficient efficient efficient

The next word is whirlwind efficient

Successes are The blocks are Forks are The next word is dominoes dominoes cutlery dominoes ongoing ongoing ongoing ongoing

A friend is A garden needs The world is sunshine sunshine round happiness happiness happiness

Doubt is a Mesh is a Rice is a net net food trap trap trap

The next word is sunshine happiness

The next word is net trap

Memory is a The reptile is a Soup is an The next word is snake snake entree snake treacherous treacherous treacherous treacherous

Alcoholism is a A tapeworm is a A eucalypt is a parasite parasite tree destructive destructive destructive

Jealousy is an Syphilis is an Copper is an infection infection element sickness sickness sickness

Indecision is a The currents caused a Football is a whirlpool whirlpool business confusion confusion confusion

Her heart is a A cocoon houses a The dog is a moth moth pet fluttering fluttering fluttering

Respect is a A ruby is a The playground is a gem gem park valuable valuable valuable

A rubbish truck is a The spotted hyena is a A dog house is a scavenger scavenger kennel collector collector collector

Divorce is an Tremors follow an Training is a earthquake earthquake necessity shattering shattering shattering

The next word is parasite destructive

The next word is infection sickness

The next word is whirlpool confusion

The next word is moth fluttering

The next word is gem valuable

The next word is scavenger collector

The next word is earthquake shattering



A tree is an A parasol is an Uluru is an umbrella umbrella icon shelter shelter shelter

The partner is a A skink is a A wolf is a lizard lizard predator lazy lazy lazy

Happiness is Mines produce Tomatoes are gold gold red precious precious precious

Loneliness is a The Sahara is a Money is a desert desert reward barren barren barren

Hard work is a He clambered up a The Dodo Bird is ladder ladder extinct success success success

Humiliation is a A breeze blew the Logic is a curtain curtain science disguise disguise disguise

A rocket is a The gun contained a My friend is a bullet bullet teacher fast fast fast

A rumor is a The Black Death was a The poodle has a plague plague pedigree spreads spreads spreads

Wisdom is a The spray is a Howard is a fountain fountain politician source source source

An athlete is a A soldier is a A drummer is a warrior warrior musician competitor competitor competitor

Hard work is an Some poppies produce Playing sport is an opium opium effort addictive addictive addictive

Conscience is a The plant has a Coffee is a thorn thorn beverage irritation irritation irritation

The next word is umbrella shelter

The next word 1s lizard lazy

The next word is gold precious

The next word is desert barren

The next word is ladder success

The next word is curtain disguise

The next word is bullet fast

The next word is plague spreads

The next word is fountain source

The next word is warrior competitor

The next word is opium addictive

The next word xs thorn irritation

Coney and Lange 115


Darkness is a The surgeon wore a The bike is a The next word ~s glove glove gift glove cover cover cover cover

Criticism is Aspirin is Golf is a medicine medicine sport helpful helpful helpful

The next word ~s medicine helpful

The blackmailer is a The worm is a The cockatoo is a The next word is leech leech parrot leech user user user user

Adventure is a The fair has a Graffiti is a roller-coaster roller-coaster concern exciting exciting exciting

Sarcasm is Vinegar is Lightning is acid acid dangerous biting biting biting

Anger is a A snowstorm is a Granite is a blizzard blizzard stone blinding blinding blinding

A good lover is a The wild beast is a A school reunion is a tiger tiger duty raunchy raunchy raunchy

A roadhouse is an Plants grow at an A quest is a oasis oasis journey refuge refuge refuge

Ritual is a Bandyup is a Seven is a prison prison number confining confining confining

A dilemma is a Prickly Pear is a A dollar is a cactus cactus coin discomfort discomfort discomfort

Truth is a A labyrinth is a A prayer is a maze maze comfort difficult difficult difficult

Time is a A tsunami is a A fresco is a wave wave mural rhythmic rhythmic rhythmic

The next word as roller-coaster exciting

The next word is acid biting

The next word is blizzard blinding

The next word is tiger raunchy

The next word is oasis refuge

The next word is prison confining

The next word is

cactus discomfort

The next word ~s maze difficult

The next word is wave rhythmic



Babies are Cherubs are Prices are The next word is angels angels high angels innocent innocent innocent innocent

Happiness is a Oil gushes from a An apple is a The next word is well well fruit well everlasting everlasting everlasting everlasting

Security is a ASIO set a The Simpsons is a trap trap comedy misleading misleading misleading

Lies are a The quagmire is a Diamonds are a swamp swamp luxury dirty dirty dirty

A smile is an The diplomat is an The siren is a ambassador ambassador warning welcoming welcoming welcoming

Billboards are Viruses cause Biographies are warts warts history ugly ugly ugly

A wish is a The spectrum is a Buddhism is a rainbow rainbow religion hopeful hopeful hopeful

A desert is a The Tasman is a A photo is a sea sea record vast vast vast

Teachers are Those books are Bullfrogs are encyclopedias encyclopedias amphibians knowledge knowledge knowledge

A degree is a The exit is a A dam is a doorway doorway reservoir opening opening opening

Danger is a Nutmeg is a Scrooge was a spice spice miser thrill thrill thrill

The family is a A boulder is a The car is a rock rock sedan foundation foundation foundation

The next word is trap misleading

The next word is swamp dirty

The next word is ambassador welcoming

The next word xs warts ugly

The next word is rainbow hopeful

The next word 1s s e a

vast

The next word is encyclopedias knowledge

The next word 1s doorway opening

The next word is spice thrill

The next word is rock foundation

Coney and Lange 117


Freedom is Facts are the Honey is truth truth sweet right right right

Beaches are Ovens have Bullets are grills grills lethal hot hot hot

The next word is truth right

The next word is grills hot

The environment is a A commode is a Her brother is an The next word is toilet toilet author toilet pollution pollution pollution pollution

A smile is a One shaves with a Pavlova is a razor razor dessert cutting cutting cutting

The next word is razor cutting

The cat is a Diana was a Poverty is a The next word is princess princess hardship princess pampered pampered pampered pampered

A degree is The wealthy have The mirror is money money glass opportunity opportunity opportunity

The next word is money opportunity

Criminals are Bacteria are Slippers are The next word is germs germs comfortable germs undesirable undesirable undesirable undesirable

The fog is a The gent wore a The song is a The next word as coat coat favorite coat conceal conceal conceal conceal

His heart is a Clothes hang in a The wattle is an The next word is closet closet emblem closet secretive secretive secretive secretive

Hands are Tablets are Weddings are The next word is medicine medicine rituals medicine healing healing healing healing

A job is a Pentridge is a A riddle is an The next word is jail jail puzzle jail limitation limitation limitation limitation

Education is a A lighthouse has a Skating is a The next word is lantern lantern sport lantern enlighten enlighten enlighten enlighten



Roosters are Sundials are Crickets are The next word is clocks clocks insects clocks reliable reliable reliable reliable

Fugitives are Magpies are Politicians are The next word is birds birds elected birds fleeing fleeing fleeing fleeing

N O T E S

Address for correspondence: Jeffrey Coney, School of Psychology, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Western Australia 6150, Australia. E-mail: [email protected].

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Automatic and attentional processes in the comprehension of unfamiliar metaphors

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