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Related Experiment Videos

Comprehending figurative referential descriptions.

R W Gibbs1

  • 1Program in Experimental Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz 95064.

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition
|January 11, 1990
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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People understand figurative language, like metaphors and metonymy, by recalling the person being described. Literal descriptions are easiest to recall, followed by metaphors, then metonymy.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Linguistics
  • Psycholinguistics

Background:

  • Figurative language, including metaphor and metonymy, is commonly used to refer to people.
  • Understanding how the brain processes these figurative descriptions is crucial for comprehending language.
  • Anaphora resolution, the process of identifying the referent of a pronoun or description, is a key aspect of language comprehension.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the anaphoric inferences made during the comprehension of figurative referential descriptions.
  • To compare the cognitive ease of processing literal, metaphoric, and metonymic descriptions.
  • To examine how different types of figurative language affect the reinstatement of antecedents in memory.

Main Methods:

  • Participants read short narratives ending in either literal or figurative descriptions of a person.

Related Experiment Videos

  • A probe recognition task was used to measure the speed of antecedent reinstatement immediately after reading.
  • Three experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses regarding figurative language comprehension.

    • Main Results:

    • Metaphoric and metonymic descriptions successfully reinstate their antecedents during comprehension.
    • Participants were faster at reinstating antecedents for literal descriptions compared to figurative ones.
    • Metaphoric descriptions were understood more easily than metonymic descriptions.

    Conclusions:

    • The findings support theories of anaphora resolution and figurative language comprehension.
    • Different types of figurative language (metaphor vs. metonymy) impose varying cognitive loads.
    • This research sheds light on the cognitive mechanisms underlying the interpretation of non-literal language.