Metaphor Processing

In a series of studies, we demonstrated that the literal meaning of conventional metaphors such as early bird was available during metaphor comprehension. In a maze task, participants read two-word metaphors embedded in carrier sentences (e.g., John is an early bird so he can…). At the maze juncture, participants were slower and less accurate when the target word to continue the sentence (attend) was paired with a distractor related to the literal meaning of the metaphor (fly) compared to an unrelated one (cry). This effect, termed the metaphor awakening effect (MAE), shows the conflict between associated literal concepts accessed during the initial stages of metaphor comprehension and a subsequent literal cue. These findings support the minimalist model of metaphor processing, which posits that the literal meaning is available during metaphor comprehension.

Publications:

Pissani, L., Genovesi, C., & de Almeida, R. G. (in preparation). The influence of familiarity, aptness, and concreteness on accessing the literal meaning of a metaphor during sentence comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (submission planned).

Pissani, L., Scholman, M., & Demberg, V. (in preparation). The role of individual differences in online and offline metaphor comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language (submission planned).

Pissani, L., Meiser, M. V., & Demberg, V. (2025, submitted). The impact of music on metaphor production.

Pissani, L. & de Almeida, R. G. (2024, submitted). Aptness, familiarity, concreteness, and linguistic variables for 300 two-word metaphor combinations in context and in isolation.  https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/XK3J9

Pissani, L., & de Almeida, R. G. (2023). Early birds can fly: Awakening the literal meaning of conventional metaphors further downstream. Metaphor and Symbol, 38(4), 346-362. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2023.2225561

Pissani, L., & de Almeida, R. G. (2022). Can you mend a broken heart? Awakening conventional metaphors in the maze. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 29(1), 253-261.

 https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-021-01985-y

Pissani, L., & de Almeida, R. G. (2022). What happens to the literal meanings of metaphors? A review and a “minimalist” proposal. In M. Liu & S. Rotter (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth Workshop “Concepts in Action: Representation, Learning, and Application” (CARLA 2022). Retrieved from https://conceptresearch.github.io/CARLA/carla_workshop/abstracts_2022/Pissani_de-Almeida.pdf

Roncero, C., de Almeida, R. G., Pissani, L., & Patalas, I. (2021). A metaphor is not like a simile: Reading-time evidence for distinct interpretations for negated tropes. Metaphor and Symbol, 36(2), 85–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2021.1882258