Some cognitive aspects of figurative language: Association and metaphor

This study was designed to explore the relationship between some predictions generated by a cognitive-feature model of association and metaphor understanding. Several kinds of data were collected from University of Tennessee undergraduates on the two key nouns in each of 28 randomly selected metaphors—both in and out of metaphor context—as well as judged goodness and ease of writing interpretations for the metaphors themselves. Interword similarity, free association variability, and characteristics of common property distributions for key-noun pairs were highly intercorrelated (as predicted by the associative model) and also related to metaphor goodness and difficulty of metaphor interpretation (canonical r=0.78). These results provide indirect support for the associative model and also provide some insight into the cognitive processes underlying metaphor understanding.     

Concept Abstractness and the Representation of Noun–Noun Combinations

Research on noun–noun combinations has been largely focusing on concrete concepts. Three experiments examined the role of concept abstractness in the representation of noun–noun combinations. In Experiment 1, participants provided written interpretations for phrases constituted by nouns of varying degrees of abstractness. Interpretive focus (the modifier, the head noun, or both) for each noun–noun phrase was evaluated. In Experiment 2, a different group of participants directly indicated which noun, the modifier or the head noun, was the focus of the meaning of each noun–noun phrase. Finally, participants in Experiment 3 assessed similarity of noun–noun phrases with overlapping modifiers. If abstractness of constituent nouns affects information distribution between modifier and head noun, it would accordingly affect similarity ratings for noun–noun phrases with overlapping modifiers. Results showed that the pattern of information distribution within a noun–noun phrase differed between phrases with abstract head nouns and phrases with concrete head nouns. Specifically, the center of representation was more on the head noun side for phrases with concrete head nouns, whereas the center seemed to shift to the direction of the modifier for phrases with abstract head nouns. Some issues related to effects of concept abstractness on noun–noun combinations are discussed.     

Frequency effects in the processing of lexicalized and novel nominal compounds

The processing of lexicalized and novel noun-noun compounds of high interpretability was investigated. In Experiment 1, the familiarity of the lexicalized compounds had a significant effect on lexical decision times, but no frequency effects were observed for the constituent nouns. In Experiment 2, a frequency effect was found for the first noun of novel compounds, but not for the second noun. This result was replicated in Experiment 3 with different types of nonwords. A negative word frequency effect for the first noun was found in Experiment 4 in which the novel compounds functioned as nonwords. A frequency effect for the first noun was also observed in Experiment 5, in which a semantic classification task was used. Results point to a decomposition second model according to which access is initially based on the whole compound. If this is unsuccessful the compound will be decomposed and the constituent nouns will be processed separately. It is argued that in novel compounds, nouns are processed sequentially, and different orders of processing are discussed.     

Gender Agreement in the Processing of Spoken French

The two experiments presented in this paper tested the effects of gender agreement on lexical decisions by presenting grammatically congruent and incongruent noun phrases in different context-target combinations. In the first experiment, a condition in which the target noun was directly preceded by a gender-marked determiner was contrasted with a condition in which an invariable adjective intervened between the determiner and the target. In the second experiment we compared the effects of gender marking in the latter condition with a condition in which both the determiner and the intervening adjective carried an overt gender mark. It was shown first, that lexical decision times to target nouns were longer for incongruent context-target combinations than for a congruent baseline condition. Second, the magnitude of the congruency effect was stronger when the target noun was preceded by a determiner plus an invariable adjective than by a determiner only. Third, the magnitude of the effect did not vary according to whether or not the intervening adjective carried a phonetically realized mark of gender. These results are discussed in terms of the automaticity of syntactic processes, and the crucial role of determiners in setting agreement features for the entire noun phrase when processing languages such as French.     

Semantic and syntactic forces in noun phrase production

Three experiments investigated semantic and syntactic effects in the production of phrases in Dutch. Bilingual participants were presented with English nouns and were asked to produce an adjective + noun phrase in Dutch including the translation of the noun. In 2 experiments, the authors blocked items by either semantic category or grammatical gender. Participants performed the task slower when the target nouns were of the same semantic category than when they were from different categories and faster when the target nouns had the same gender than when they had different genders. In a final experiment, both manipulations were crossed. The authors replicated the results of the first 2 experiments, and no interaction was found. These findings suggest a feedforward flow of activation between lexico-semantic and lexico-syntactic information.     

The role of noun imagery in the speed of processing the grammaticality of adjective-noun phrases

This experiment investigated speed of processing the grammaticality of phrases consisting of the adjective “one” or “two” followed by a singular or plural noun. The subject’s task was to press one of two keys, depending upon whether the phrase was grammatically correct or incorrect. There were eight types of phrases, formed by the factorial combinations of singular or plural adjectives, singular or plural nouns, and high or low noun imageD’. These served as within-subjects variables. Between-subjects variables were the factorial combinations of sex of subject, duration of stimulus phrase (.2 or 2.5 sec), and hand assigned to the correct-grammar key. A fourth between-subjects variable was whether or not the subject reported using an artificial phrase-scanning strategy to determine grammaticality. Correct grammar, singular noun form, high noun imagery, and reported use of the strategy all produced highly significant reductions in reaction times. Only 1% of the interactions were significant. A multistage serial processing model that could be based upon Sternberg’s additive factor paradigm or even Donders’ subtraction method was found to be highly successful in describing the results.     

Spatial distance effects on incremental semantic interpretation of abstract sentences: Evidence from eye tracking

A large body of evidence has shown that visual context information can rapidly modulate language comprehension for concrete sentences and when it is mediated by a referential or a lexical-semantic link. What has not yet been examined is whether visual context can also modulate comprehension of abstract sentences incrementally when it is neither referenced by, nor lexically associated with, the sentence. Three eye-tracking reading experiments examined the effects of spatial distance between words (Experiment 1) and objects (Experiment 2 and 3) on participants’ reading times for sentences that convey similarity or difference between two abstract nouns (e.g., ‘Peace and war are certainly different...’). Before reading the sentence, participants inspected a visual context with two playing cards that moved either far apart or close together. In Experiment 1, the cards turned and showed the first two nouns of the sentence (e.g., ‘peace’, ‘war’). In Experiments 2 and 3, they turned but remained blank. Participants’ reading times at the adjective (Experiment 1: first-pass reading time; Experiment 2: total times) and at the second noun phrase (Experiment 3: first-pass times) were faster for sentences that expressed similarity when the preceding words/objects were close together (vs. far apart) and for sentences that expressed dissimilarity when the preceding words/objects were far apart (vs. close together). Thus, spatial distance between words or entirely unrelated objects can rapidly and incrementally modulate the semantic interpretation of abstract sentences.     

Recognition memory for elements of sentences

Although several theoretical positions and a variety of empirical tasks indicate the importance of verbs to sentences, nouns are generally recalled and recognized better in memorial tasks. Three main models can be identified to explain this discrepancy ("Fillenbaum's paradox"). To try to resolve this paradox, several experiments explored the efficiency of various sentence elements as cues in recognition memory. In Experiment I, concreteness of the stimuli did not interact with the type of distractor; however, verb phrase changes were harder to recognize than noun phrase changes when synonym distractors were used. This result was replicated in a forced-choice recognition paradigm (Experiment II) and with whole sentences where the derivational similarity of verbs and nouns was controlled (Experiment IV). The effect could not be attributed to characteristics of the English language (Experiment III) or to superior memory for form information in nouns (Experiment V). The total results are interpreted as suggesting that subjects process different parts of a sentence to different semantic levels, with verbs receiving more semantic representation and nouns more orthographic or phonological representation. The results are taken as support for a "semantic encoding model" of Fillenbaum's paradox.     

Dominance and typicality norms for properties: Convergent and discriminant validity

Sensory properties of verbally depicted items, such as those of color or shape, were indexed for dominance (frequency of output) and typicality (perceptual “goodness”). Participants (total N=193) served in one of four conditions. The most dominant property response was computed for 105 nouns by one group. A second group rated these properties for typicality, relative to a constituent property (i.e., given one’s idea of yellow, how typically “yellow” are the following items: butter, canary, daffodil, ...). A third group produced as many properties as possible for each of 65 nouns. Dominance was computed for all 459 properties so produced. The last group rated these 459 properties for typicality relative to the parent noun (i.e., Given your image of an apple, how typically round is it? How typically soft is it? etc.). A multimethod-multitrait analysis indicated that both typicality and dominance were reliable, and that both exhibited convergent and discriminant validity. Typicality measured relative to an ideal property exhibited greater discriminant validity from dominance than when measured relative to the parent noun. Selected uses of these norms in studies of semantic memory, metaphor judgment, and concept identification were discussed.     

Different time courses of integrative semantic processing for plural and singular nouns: implications for theories of sentence processing

The research investigated the time course of integrative semantic processing during sentence processing. Reading time was measured on sentences containing an NP composed of an adjective and a noun whose combined meaning was plausible or anomalous (Experiment 1) or was typical or atypical (Experiment 2). The noun in the NP was either plural or singular. Plural nouns were expected to be more rapidly integrated with a preceding adjective than singular nouns because plural nouns can be ruled out as the first noun in a noun compound more rapidly than singular nouns. The results confirmed this prediction, showing that the effects of semantic plausibility and typicality were observed immediately during the processing of plural nouns, but were observed at a delay following the processing of singular nouns. Implications for theories of sentence processing are discussed.     

Dimensions of metaphor

Two rating studies examined several dimensions of metaphorical sentences. A pool of 260 metaphors was constructed, all in the form “(noun phrase) is/are (noun phrase).” In Study 1 all of the items, and in Study 2, 98 of the items were evaluated on ten scales presumed to be important to the comprehension or interpretation of metaphors: semantic relatedness of the subject and predicate, comprehensibility, imageability, imageability of the subject (topic), imageability of the predicate (vehicle), degree of metaphoricity, metaphor goodness, ease of interpretation, number of alternative interpretations, and felt familiarity of the metaphoric ground. Both experiments revealed the rated dimensions to be highly interrelated, but some analyses allowed evaluation of alternative predictions based on current theoretical approaches to metaphor quality and interpretation. The results indicated consistent but mixed support for the general poisitions under consideration as each appeared to have strong and weak areas of applicability. The interrelationships among the scales are discussed, together with implications of the findings for current theories and future metaphor research.     

Predicting which words get recalled: Measures of free recall,availability, goodness,emotionality, and pronunciability for 925 nouns

To investigate the properties that make a word easy to recall, we added to existing norms for 925 nouns measures of availability, goodness, emotionality, pronunciability, and probability of recall in multiple-trial free recall. Availability, imagery, and emotionality were found to be the best predictors of which words were recalled. This result, which is stable across recall data collected in three separate laboratories, argues for the importance of availability as a predictor of recall and questions the role of the correlated variables of word frequency and meaningfulness. Consistent with earlier work on a smaller sample of words, six factors describe the numerous properties of words studied by psychologists. The six factors are composed of variables based on orthography, imagery and meaning, word frequency, recall, emotionality, and goodness.     

Conceptual similarity and the quality of metaphor in isolated sentences versus extended contexts

Many researchers have theorized or demonstrated a relationship between tenor and vehicle similarity and the judged quality of metaphors. In four experiments, each using different materials, the relationship between similarity and metaphoric quality was examined. Undergraduates in two different institutions rated: (1) the similarity of tenor and vehicle concepts, (2) the quality of metaphors in isolated, formulaic, sentences (the sort of materials used in previous experiments), or (3) the quality of the same metaphors in various extended, natural contexts. Average ratings of all three variables were determined for each metaphor. In all four experiments, similarity was highly positively correlated with the quality of metaphors in isolated, formulaic contexts, but similarity was either not correlated highly (Experiment 3) or not correlated at all (Experiment 1,2 & 4) with the quality of metaphors in extended, natural contexts. In three of the experiments, the quality of metaphors in isolated, formulaic sentences was not significantly correlated with the quality of metaphors in extended context.     

Semantic priming effect of metaphor constituent terms

Camac and Glucksberg reported there was no priming effect between constituent terms of a metaphor and argued that there was no prior similarity or association between the constituents. However, their study had several limitations. An important one was that they neglected the asymmetry of metaphor constituent terms. The purpose of this study is to replicate their experiment under the condition in which one of the constituents preceded the other. The experiment was conducted with Japanese participants using Japanese metaphoric sentences as stimuli. The results showed that the decision was facilitated if the vehicle served as prime and the topic served as target. In contrast, if the topic preceded the vehicle, no priming effect was found. These results are discussed in terms of the class inclusion model proposed earlier by Glucksberg and Keysar.     

Processing grammatical gender of role nouns: Further evidence from eye movements

Two eye-tracking experiments investigated the effects of masculine versus feminine grammatical gender on the processing of role nouns and on establishing coreference relations. Participants read sentences with the basic structure My <kinship term> is a <role noun> <prepositional phrase > such as My brother is a singer in a band. Role nouns were either masculine or feminine. Kinship terms were lexically male or female and in this way specified referent gender, i.e., the sex of the person referred to. Experiment 1 tested a fully crossed design including items with an incorrect combination of lexically male kinship term and feminine role name. Experiment 2 tested only correct combinations of grammatical and lexical/referential gender to control for possible effects of the incorrect items of Experiment 1. In early stages of processing, feminine role nouns, but not masculine ones, were fixated longer when grammatical and referential gender were contradictory (Bruder _male–Sängerin _fem/brother–[female] singer). In later stages of sentence wrap-up there were longer fixations for sentences with masculine than for those with feminine role nouns. Results of both experiments indicate that, for feminine role nouns, cues to referent gender are integrated immediately, whereas a late integration obtains for masculine forms.     

Prenominal adjective order and visual discrimination in children

Preschool and third-grade children heard prenominal adjective phrases describing an object. Each phrase contained an article, two adjectives and a head noun. The phrases were constructed with either normal or inverted adjective order. Either after a one second delay or immediately following phrase presentation, Subjects were shown pictures of two objects. One of the objects (target) depicted the object described in the noun phrase. The other object differed from the target along the dimensions of color, size, or both color and size. The Subject's task was to select the target object. It was predicted that adjective order would influence perceptual strategies used by the Subjects in the visual discrimination task. Analysis of response time scores showed that adjective order interacted with the relevant discriminative stimuli in the discrimination task. These results were interpreted as support for hypotheses that suggest that linguistic organization can constrain conceptual processing involving nonlinguistic information. The effects of the delay condition provided additional evidence for these hypotheses plus support for an arousal hypothesis.     

Stimulus needs are a moving target: 240 additional matched literal and metaphorical sentences for testing neural hypotheses about metaphor

As the cognitive neuroscience of metaphor has evolved, so too have the theoretical questions of greatest interest. To keep pace with these developments, in the present study we generated a large set of metaphoric and literal sentence pairs ideally suited to addressing the current methodological and conceptual needs of metaphor researchers. In particular, the need has emerged to distinguish metaphors along three dimensions: the grammatical class of their base terms, the sensorimotor features of their base terms, and the syntactic form in which the base terms appear. To meet this need, we generated nominal metaphors (and matched literal sentences) using entity nouns as the base terms, with the intention that they be used in concert with already published sets of predicate metaphors or nominal metaphors using event nouns. Using the results of three norming experiments, we provide 120 pairs of closely matched metaphoric and literal sentences that are characterized along 14 dimensions: 11 at the sentence level (length, frequency, concreteness, familiarity, naturalness, imageability, figurativeness, interpretability, ease of interpretation, valence, and valence judgment reaction time), and three related to the base term (visual, motion, and auditory imagery). These items extend previously published stimuli, filling an extant gap in metaphor research and allowing for tests of new behavioral and neural hypotheses about metaphor.     

Grammatical priming of inflected nouns by the gender of possessive adjectives

Two experiments examined the effect on lexical decision times for inflected Serbo-Croatian nouns when the nouns were preceded by possessive adjectives (my, your, our). For any given pairing the possessive adjective and the noun agreed always in number (singular) and case (nominative) but only agreed half of the time in gender (masculine or feminine). Lexical decisions were faster when the noun targets were of the same gender as their primes. This gender congruency/incongruency effect was shown to hold whether the inflections of the adjective and noun were the same (as is the case for typical Serbo-Croatian nouns) or different (as is the case for atypical Serbo-Croatian nouns). The results are discussed in terms of a postlexical influence of grammatical processing on the recognition of individual words.     

Development of parafoveal processing within and across words in reading: Evidence from the boundary paradigm

In this study we used the boundary paradigm to examine whether readers extract more parafoveal information within than across words. More specifically, we examined whether readers extract more parafoveal information from a compound word's second constituent than from the same word when it is the noun in an adjective–noun phrase (kummitustarina “ghost story” vs. lennokas tarina “vivid story”). We also examined whether the processing of compound word constituents is serial or parallel and how parafoveal word processing develops over the elementary school years. Participants were Finnish adults and 8-year-old second-, 10-year-old fourth-, and 12-year-old sixth-graders. The results showed that for all age groups more parafoveal information is extracted from the second constituent within compounds than from the noun in adjective–noun phrases. Moreover, for all age groups we found evidence for parallel processing of constituents within compounds, but only when the compounds were of high frequency. In sum, the present study shows that attentional allocation extends further to the right and is more simultaneous when words are linguistically and spatially unified, providing evidence that attention in text processing is flexible in nature.