Comprehension and Memory of the Literal and Figurative Meaning of Proverbs

Proverbs were used to examine reci)gt~it ion memon f o r four wpes of sentence information U?guraticr meaning, literal meaning, lexical inforrnutinn, syntactic information) with n\.u li'vels of comprehension. Forced-choice recognition tasks showed that subjects were s u ~ ~ c i ' s . ~ j i ~ I in rernetnhering al l fi111r t\'pes of infi)rrnation. Recognition scores for the f i f i i rcuin' t u c t i t ~ i n ~ ~ o j unfamiliar pr(1verh.s presented in isolation were above chance and were also .xi,ynij'icantl~ improved when procedures were employed which encouraged comprehension oJ this level of meaning. The results are most consistent with theories of comprehension which provide for dijfkrent type's of processing for figurative and literal l(~ni;ntit,'e.