Poster C36, Wednesday, August 21, 2019, 10:45 am – 12:30 pm, Restaurant Hall
Electrophysiological Evidence for the Processing of Predicative Metaphors
George Spanoudis1;1Psychology Department, University of Cyprus
Despite the growing literature on metaphor comprehension, very few studies attempted to investigate the electrophysiological basis of predicative metaphor processing. Predicative metaphors elicit the creation of a semantic link either between the subject and the verb or between the verb and its object. We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the time-course of processing metaphorical and literal sentences. Nineteen healthy participants (sixteen female, three male, 19-28 years) read sentences silently and judged by pressing one of two buttons whether the sentences had a metaphorical or literal meaning. ERPs were measured to mid-sentence targeted verbs (TVs) as participants read familiar predicative metaphors (‘the boy hides his feelings’) or literal sentences (‘the boy hides the cakes’) of the same form. Reading metaphors in contrast to literal sentences revealed a robust N400 effect; TVs in the metaphorical, in comparison to the literal, sentences evoked an early localized N400 effect that was around 400 ms after TV onset, signifying that, by this time, their metaphorical meaning had been obtained. These findings are consistent with electrophysiological studies of nominal metaphor indicating that predicative metaphor comprehension share a common electrophysiological activity with other metaphors.
Themes: Meaning: Lexical Semantics, Meaning: Discourse and Pragmatics
Method: Electrophysiology (MEG/EEG/ECOG)