What is the relationship between spatial language and abstract concepts? When people talk about abstract things that they can never see or touch, they often use spatial metaphors (e.g., a long vacation, a high price, a close friendship). According to theories of metaphorical mental representation, linguistic metaphors reflect underlying mental metaphors. Yet, behavioral experiments show that th...

This study examined how emergent features, which are made salient in the interpretation of metaphor, are related to metaphor appreciation. According to an incongruity resolution model of poetic appreciation, the role of emergent features in metaphor appreciation is predicted to facilitate poetic appreciation by constituting a richer interpretation when topic–vehicle similarity is lower. Two exp...

Methods for automatic detection and interpretation of metaphors have focused on analysis and utilization of the ways in which metaphors violate selectional preferences (Martin, 2006). Detection and interpretation processes that rely on this method can achieve wide coverage and may be able to detect some novel metaphors. However, they are prone to high false alarm rates, often arising from impre...

Cognitive linguists suggest that understanding metaphors requires activation of conceptual mappings between the involved concepts. We tested whether mappings are indeed in use during metaphor comprehension, and what mapping means as a cognitive process with Event-Related Potentials. Participants read literal, conventional metaphorical, novel metaphorical, and anomalous target sentences preceded...