The Costs and Benefits of Metaphor

Many researchers consider metaphor so fundamental to psychological activity that they claim that it does not require extra cognitive effort to process. We do not dispute that metaphors are natural to human cognition, but we argue that a metaphor's relative ease of use should not be confounded with an expectation that it prompts no extra effort. As many studies show (including those presented here), metaphors often come with costs when compared to nonfigurative controls (e.g., longer processing times). However, we also argue that the extra costs associated with an apt metaphor should come with benefits. This analysis, based on relevance theory, does a good job of accounting for some overlooked psycholinguistic findings concerning metaphor processing.