A meaning of a word or an expression is salient if it is coded, i.e., retrievable from the mental lexicon.
Factors contributing to degree of salience are e.g., conventionality, frequency, and familiarity.
However, processing familiar ironies in literally biasing contexts should activate both their contextually compatible literal meaning as well as their contextually incompatible ironic meaning, because both meanings are salient. Results did not change significantly after a 1,000-msec delay. In the literally biasing contexts, less familiar ironies facilitated only the literal meaning. In contrast, familiar ironies facilitated both their literal and ironic meanings under both interstimulus interval conditions, as predicted.