Comprehension of metaphors: A test of the two-stage processing model

This study examined the hypothesis that metaphorical sentences are comprehended in a two-stage process of first understanding the literal meaning and then using that to construct the intended metaphorical meaning. Using metaphorical quotations from Shakespeare and nonmetaphorical equivalents, no differences between the two sentence types were obtained in a paraphrasing task which measured the subject’s latency to initiate the paraphrase. Neither was there any metaphoricalnonmetaphorical difference in paraphrase adequacy. Only very minimal negative correlations of paraphrase adequacy and latency were obtained. Thus, no evidence for a two-stage processing model of metaphor comprehension was found. Reasons for such results were discussed, along with other possible processing models.