Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T23:34:02.092Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The role of working memory in the comprehension of unfamiliar and familiar metaphors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2014

Nira Mashal
Nira Mashal*
Affiliation:
Bar Ilan University, Israel. E-mail: nmashal2@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Comprehension of unfamiliar metaphors (mercy blanket) is an effortful cognitive process that requires the formation of a novel metaphoric mapping between two disparate domains during which irrelevant properties have to be suppressed. The present study aims to examine the relationship between the comprehension of both unfamiliar and familiar metaphors and working memory. Three experiments were conducted: a comprehension task (Experiment 1), a recognition task (Experiments 2a and 2b), and a free recall task (Experiment 3). In the first experiment comprehension of both unfamiliar and familiar metaphors correlated with digit span backward but not with digit span forward. Results of the second experiment revealed that unfamiliar metaphors induced a higher rate of semantic errors relative to phonological errors, whereas familiar metaphors induced the same number of phonological and semantic errors. The third experiment confirmed that unfamiliar metaphors were harder to recall than were familiar metaphors. These findings show that working memory capacity may be involved in the computation of unfamiliar metaphoric interpretations, and more specifically in the process of suppressing irrelevant information via the central executive. Familiar metaphor recognition may rely on either phonological codes that are maintained in the phonological loop or on semantic processing that involves long term storage.

Keywords

unfamiliar metaphorsworking memoryrecognition
Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , December 2013 , pp. 409 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baddeley, A. D. & Hitch, G. J. 1974. Working memory. In Bower, G. A. (ed.), Recent advances in learning and motivation Vol. 8, 47–90. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Baddeley, A. D. 2003. Working memory and language: An overview. Journal of Communication Disorders 36. 189–208.Google Scholar
Bowdle, B. F. & Gentner, D. 1999. Metaphor comprehension: From comparison to categorization. Proceedings of the Twenty-First Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 90–95.Google Scholar
Bowdle, B. F. & Gentner, D. 2005. The career of metaphor. Psychological Review 112. 193–216.Google Scholar
Chiappe, D. L. & Chiappe, P. 2007. The role of working memory in metaphor production and comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language 56. 172–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coulson, S. 1996. The Menendez brothers virus: Analogical mapping in blended spaces. In Goldberg, A. (ed.), Conceptual structure, discourse, and language, 143–158. Palo Alto, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Coulson, S. 2000. Semantic leaps: Frame-shifting and conceptual blending in meaning construction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Coulson, S. & Oakley, T. 2000. Blending basics. Cognitive Linguistics 11. 175–196.Google Scholar
Coulson, S. & Van Petten, C. 2002. Conceptual integration and metaphor: An event-related potential study. Memory and Cognition 30. 958–968.Google Scholar
Faust, M. & Mashal, N. 2007. Right hemisphere advantage in processing novel metaphoric expressions: Behavioral data. Neuropsychologia 45. 860–870.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fauconnier, G. & Turner, M. 1998. Conceptual integration networks. Cognitive Science 22. 133–187.Google Scholar
Gentner, D. & Bowdle, B. 2008. Metaphor as structure-mapping. In Ortony, A. (ed.), Metaphor and thought, 109–128. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gernsbacher, M., Keysar, B., Robertson, R. & Werner, N. 2001. The role of suppression and enhancement in understanding metaphors. Journal of Memory and Language 45. 433–450.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gibbs, R.W. 1994. The poetics of mind: Figurative thought, language, and understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R.W.Bogdanovich, J. M., Sykes, J. R. & Barr, D. J. 1997. Metaphor in idiom comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language 37. 141–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giora, R. 1997. Understanding figurative and literal language: The graded salience hypothesis. Cognitive Linguistics 7. 183–206.Google Scholar
Glucksberg, S., Newsome, M., & Goldvarg, Y. 2001. Inhibition of the literal: Filtering metaphor-irrelevant information during metaphor comprehension. Metaphor and Symbol 16. 277–293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glucksberg, S., McGlone, M.S., & Manfredi, D. 1997. Property Attribution in Metaphor Comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language 36. 50–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glucksberg, S., Gildea, P. & Bookin, H. B. 1982. On understanding nonliteral speech: Can people ignore metaphors? Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 21. 85–98.Google Scholar
Goldvarg, Y. & Glucksberg, S. 1998. Conceptual combinations: the role of similarities. Metaphor and Symbol 13. 243–255.Google Scholar
Kane, M. J., Bleckley, M. K., Conway, A. R. A. & Engle, R. W. 2001. A controlled-attention view of working-memory capacity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 130. 169–183.Google Scholar
Mashal, N., Gavrieli, R. & Kavé, G. 2011. Age-related changes in the appreciation of novel metaphoric semantic relations. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition 18. 527–543.Google Scholar
Monetta, L. & Pell, M. D. 2007. Effects of verbal working memory deficits on metaphor comprehension in patients with Parkinson's disease. Brain and Language 101. 80–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Murphy, G. L. 1990. Noun phrase interpretation and conceptual combination. Journal of Memory and Language 29. 259–288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nairne, J. S. 2002. Remembering over the short-term: the case against the standard model. Annual Review Psychology 53. 53–81.Google Scholar
Newsome, M. R. & Glucksberg, S. 2002. Older adults filter irrelevant information during metaphor comprehension. Experimental Aging and Research 28. 253–267.Google Scholar
Ortony, A. 1979. Beyond literal similarity. Psychological Review 86. 161–180.Google Scholar
Pierce, R. S., MacLaren, R. & Chiappe, D. L. 2010. The role of working memory in the metaphor interference effect. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 17. 400–404.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
St Clair-Thompson, H. L. & Gathercole, S. E. 2006. Executive functions and achievements in school: Shifting, updating, inhibition, and working memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 59. 745–759.Google Scholar
Wechsler, D. 1997. Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition. San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Wisniewsky, E. J. 1996. Construal and similarity in conceptual combination. Journal of Memory and Language 35. 434–453Google Scholar
Wisniewski, E. J. 1997. When concepts combine. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 4. 167–183.Google Scholar