Joint influences of metaphor familiarity and individual’s mental imagery ability on the processing styles of action metaphor comprehension: An ERP study
Date Issued
2014
Date
2014
Author(s)
Shen, Zih-Yu
Abstract
Whether sensory-motor experiences are involved in comprehending figurative sentences when no actual physical actions are implied has been controversial. This present study took a first step to investigate whether individual’s mental imagery ability, in addition to metaphor familiarity, affect the degree of sensory-motor involvement during action metaphor comprehension. We assessed participants’ mental imagery ability using the Vividness of Mental Imagery Questionnaire-2 (VVIQ-2) and assessed the ERP mental imagery effects while participants read (1) literal, (2) familiar metaphor, (3) unfamiliar metaphor, and (4) abstract sentences. Sentences were presented one word at a time on a computer screen. A probe literally related or unrelated to the sentence final predicate was presented 1000ms post the onset of the sentence final critical word. Participants pressed buttons to decide whether the probe was related to the sentential message of the preceding sentence. The ERP mental imagery effect (200-750ms) in the literal relative to the abstract condition was reliably correlated with the VVIQ scores. Results based on a median split of the VVIQ scores demonstrated that High VVIQ participants showed ERP frontal imagery effects that is prolonged in unfamiliar metaphor condition but restricted in time in familiar metaphor condition. Low VVIQ participants showed no imagery effects in either metaphor conditions, but instead an early posterior N400 mismatch effect (200-350ms) in unfamiliar metaphor condition. Despite these processing differences, the two groups were comparable in metaphor comprehension measures, such as larger LPC to unfamiliar metaphors than literal sentences (indicating attempts to resolve the conflict between literal and metaphorical meanings), no N400 reductions to literal-related probes in the metaphor conditions (indicating successful inhibition of the literal meanings), and high accuracy in the offline metaphor paraphrasing task. Together, these results suggest that depending on individual’s mental imagery ability, one may incline to simulate the sensory-motor experiences associated with the literal action meanings during action metaphors comprehension, or alternatively, approach the metaphors based on more general semantic access mechanisms, and that both processing approaches are modulated by metaphor familiarity. For people who adopt the more imagery/simulation approach, embodied experiences are routinely recruited to facilitate metaphor comprehension, and to a greater extent for unfamiliar metaphors than familiar ones. On the other hand, people who approach the metaphors based on more general semantic access mechanisms tend to obtain the metaphorical meanings by initially activating the literal meanings of unfamiliar metaphors or, due to the high salience of metaphorical meaning, by directly accessing the figurative meanings of familiar metaphors. In spite of the different processing styles, at least with the measures used here, both processing approaches lead to successful comprehension outcome. However, whether these processing styles may affect comprehension in more global contexts such as discourse or conversation would require further research.
Subjects
隱喻理解歷程
字面意的激發
熟悉度高的隱喻
熟悉度低的隱喻
動作感覺的模擬(sensory-motor simulation)
心像形成能力
圖像效果
Type
thesis
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
ntu-103-R00142005-1.pdf
Size
23.54 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):23101d03b7312b3dccfa7f8ef3f4d92e