Event-Related Potential Evidence for the Early Activation of Literal Meaning during Comprehension of Conventional Lexical Metaphors

Autor/inn/en	Lu, Aitao; Zhang, John X.
Titel	Event-Related Potential Evidence for the Early Activation of Literal Meaning during Comprehension of Conventional Lexical Metaphors
Quelle	In: Neuropsychologia, 50 (2012) 8, S.1730-1738 (9 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0028-3932
DOI	10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.03.027
Schlagwörter	Evidence; Semantics; Figurative Language; Experiments; Priming; Cognitive Processes; Comprehension; Comparative Analysis; Reading Comprehension; Chinese; Visual Stimuli; Reading Processes + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Evidenz; Semantik; Erprobung; Cognitive process; Kognitiver Prozess; Verstehen; Verständnis; Leseverstehen; China; Chinesen; Leseprozess
Abstract	Among different types of metaphors, lexical metaphors are special in that they have been highly lexicalized and often suggested to be processed like non-metaphorical words. The present study examined two types of Chinese metaphorical words which are conceptualized through body parts. One has both a metaphorical meaning and a literal meaning actively in use, with the former dominant over the latter, referred to as the Met+Lit words. The other has only metaphorical meaning, referred to as Met-only words. In two experiments, lexical metaphor words were presented following a body-related picture and participants judged whether the picture and word were semantically related (Experiment 1) or made lexical decision on the word ignoring the picture (Experiment 2). The N400 ERP responses showed a clear semantic priming effect for the Met+Lit words compared with the non-ambiguous neutral words, with latencies comparable to that in Met-only words in both experiments. The results were interpreted to indicate that the literal meaning as a subordinate meaning was activated during the early comprehension of conventional lexical metaphors, supporting the notion of dual access to metaphorical meaning and literal meaning in metaphor processing. (Contains 3 figures.) (As Provided).
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Update	2017/4/10