An Experimental Examination of Emergent Features in Metaphor Interpretation Using Semantic Priming Effects

An Experimental Examination of Emergent Features in Metaphor Interpretation Using Semantic Priming Effects AsukaTerai (asuka@nm.hum.titech.ac.jp) Global Edge Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1, Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, 1528550 JAPAN Robert L. Goldstone (rgoldsto@indiana.edu) Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405 USA Abstract prevalent and play an important role in metaphor compre- hension. Furthermore, the authors conducted an experiment using priming effects. In their experiment, emergent, topic- term or vehicle-term features were presented and partici- pants judged whether the feature was related to the primed metaphor (topic-/vehicle-term) or not. Emergent features re- quired a longer response time to be regarded as a feature of the prime than topic or vehicle features, when the features were tested with topic-term or vehicle-term primes. When tested with the metaphor as the prime, the topic and vehicle features required longer response times than did the topic- term or vehicle-term as the prime. However, the emergent features did not change their response times from one prime condition to another. As a result of these results are consistent with the interaction theory of metaphor (Black 1979), which suggests that metaphor comprehension is a product of an in- teraction between the target and the vehicle concepts. In comprehension of the metaphor “TOPIC is VEHICLE,” emergent features in the interpretation of metaphors are char- acteristic neither of the topic nor the vehicle. An exper- iment examines the hypothesis that new features emerge as metaphoric interpretations through association with non- emergent features connected with the topic, vehicle, or both. In the experiment, participants were presented with a non- emergent feature as a prime, a metaphor, and an emergent feature, sequentially. Participants were then asked to respond as to whether the emergent feature is an appropriate inter- pretation of the metaphor. The results showed that primed non-emergent features derived from the vehicle facilitate the recognition of emergent features. The results support an ac- count in which new features emerge through two processes – non-emergent features are recognized as interpretations of the metaphor and then these non-emergent features facilitate the recognition of emergent features. Keywords: Metaphor com- prehension; Feature emergence; Interaction. Introduction In this research, we examined the process of feature emer- gence, which is realized in comprehension of metaphors tak- ing the form of “TOPIC is VEHICLE”, such as “Educa- tion is a gateway.” In previous papers, interpretations (fea- tures) of this kind of metaphor were classified into four types: common features, topic features, vehicle features and emer- gent features (Becker 1997; Gineste, Indurkhya & Scart, 2000; Nueckles & Janetzko 1997). When an interpretation is thought of in relation to both the topic and the vehicle, it is regarded as a common feature. When an interpretation is thought of as a characteristic of the topic (or of the ve- hicle), it is referred to as a topic feature (or a vehicle fea- ture). The common, topic and vehicle features are regarded as non-emergent features. Finally, emergent features are not typically thought of in relation to either the topic or the ve- hicle alone, but do come to mind when the topic and vehicle enter into a metaphoric comparison. For example, for the metaphor “Ideas are diamonds,” the feature “come in a flash” is a topic feature, “beautiful” is a vehicle feature, “precious” is a common feature because it is listed as a feature when people are given either “ideas” or “diamonds” by themselves, and “unique” is an emergent feature because it is not listed for either word by itself, but is listed when the words are paired. Previous research (Gineste et al., 2000) made a list of features and reported that over 60% of metaphoric interpre- tations are emergent features. Emergent features are thus However, there is also evidence that links emergent inter- pretations asymmetrically with topics and vehicles. Becker listed interpretations of metaphorsinan experiment. She re- ported that altering a metaphor’s vehicle (e.g. “A smile is a knife” vs. “A smile is a pearl”) produced greater changes in emergent content than did altering the topic (e.g. “A smile is a knife” vs. “Teeth are knives”). This suggests that emer- gent features are influenced primarily by one’s representation of the vehicle. Nueckles and Janetzko (1997) introduce the idea that metaphor comprehension proceeds in analysis-based and synthesis-based stages. According to their idea, there is first an analysis of the lexical meanings of the topic and ve- hicle during the analysis-based stage. If the topic and ve- hicle have sufficient similarity, the metaphor comprehension does not proceed to the synthesis-based stage. For cases in which the topic-vehicle similarity is not sufficiently high, a shift to synthesis-based processing occurs. In the later case, the metaphor comprehension is achieved through a construc- tion of new components of meaning by synthesis of the topic and the vehicle. It is during this second phase that emergent features would be generated. Previous computational models of metaphor comprehen- sion have been constructed under the assumption that emer- gent features are emphasized more than non-emergent fea- tures through interactions among features in metaphor com- prehension (Utsumi, 2000; Terai & Nakagawa 2007, 2008,