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Published on: October 11, 2018
Deferred Interpretations: Why Starting Dickens is Taxing but Reading Dickens Isn't
Brian McElree1, Steven Frisson, Martin J Pickering
1Psychology Department, New York UniversityPsychology Department, University of Edinburgh.
Cognitive Science
|June 28, 2011
Summary
Understanding language requires interpreting non-literal meanings. This study found logical metonymies, unlike standard ones, are harder to process, suggesting complex sense construction is taxing.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Cognitive Science
- Linguistics
Background:
- Readers frequently encounter expressions requiring interpretation beyond literal word meanings.
- Metonymy, a figure of speech where a related concept stands in for another, presents unique comprehension challenges.
- Distinguishing between standard and logical metonymies is crucial for understanding figurative language processing.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the cognitive processing costs associated with standard and logical metonymies.
- To compare the interpretation difficulty of metonymic expressions versus conventional ones.
- To identify factors influencing the cognitive load during the construction of alternative word senses.
Main Methods:
- An eye-tracking experiment was conducted during reading.
- Participants read sentences containing standard metonymies (e.g., 'read Dickens'), logical metonymies (e.g., 'began Dickens'), and control expressions with conventional interpretations (e.g., 'met Dickens').
- Eye movement data (e.g., fixation durations, reading times) were analyzed to measure processing effort.
Main Results:
- Standard metonymies (producer-for-product) were processed with similar ease to conventional expressions.
- Logical metonymies required significantly more processing effort than both standard metonymies and conventional expressions.
- The results indicate differential processing costs for various types of non-literal language.
Conclusions:
- Constructing alternative semantic senses during comprehension can be cognitively demanding.
- Not all forms of deferred interpretation are processed uniformly.
- The necessity of generating unexpressed semantic structures appears to be a key factor in the cognitive cost of interpreting extended senses.
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