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Investigating the emotional dimension and memorability of semantically violating expressions
Poster Session E, Friday, October 2, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm, Wangari Maathai
Marta La Pietra1,2, Nicola Molinaro1,3, Iria Nieto-Rebollo1,2, Manuela Ruzzoli1,3; 1Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL), 2University of the Basque Country (EHU), 3Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science
In language, semantically incongruous meanings can be combined to create a novel conceptual representation (Gibbs & Kearney, 1994; Molinaro et al., 2012, 2015). This is evident in oxymorons, i.e., "deafening silence", "sweet sorrow", "bittersweetness", which are characterised by the conjunction of two contradictory terms. This combination generates an interference between coexisting oppositive meanings that needs to be resolved to make sense of the whole linguistic construction, ascribing oxymorons as a specific instance of cognitive conflict (Becker et al., 2024). Cognitive conflict is a multifaceted, ubiquitous phenomenon encompassing situations of varying complexity in which a mismatch between two simultaneously activated incongruent events triggers cognitive control strategies for resolution (Becker et al., 2024; Botvinick et al., 2001). Prior research suggests that cognitive conflict, albeit effortful and costly, can stimulate curiosity (Berlyne, 1957; Clark, 2018), be intrinsically rewarding (La Pietra et al., 2026), and enhance memorability (Ruzzoli et al., 2020). We believe that oxymorons represent emblematic linguistic manifestations of cognitive conflict. Given their paradoxical nature, oxymorons are widely employed in daily ironic communication (Di Palma & Rizzi et al., 2025), poetry (Gibbs & Kearney, 1994; Shen, 1987), humour, and political discourse (La Pietra & Masini, 2020). Still, little is known regarding how these peculiar constructions are perceived, what emotional experience they engender, and their specific influence on cognitive processes such as memory. To address this gap, we conducted an online experiment in which participants (N = 120) evaluated oxymorons against control and anomalous expressions. These linguistic constructions were assessed on comprehension effort, violations of expectations, affective valence and arousal. Moreover, we tested whether oxymorons were remembered more and preferred over controls and anomalous expressions. To preserve the pragmatic nature of figurative language and ensure ecological validity, all linguistic constructions were embedded in simple sentences, e.g., "The silence is deafening" vs. "lasting" vs. "humid". Results revealed that oxymorons were perceived as more effortful and expectation-violating than controls, while also being rated as less emotionally positive, lower in arousal, and less preferred. Conversely, when contrasted with anomalous expressions, oxymorons were less effortful to comprehend, less expectation-violating, and more preferred, yet remaining equally unpleasant and equal in arousal. Notably, oxymorons proved the most memorable across all linguistic constructions, suggesting that a meaningful combination of semantically incongruous representations enhanced memory, even when accompanied by unpleasant emotional experience and increased comprehension effort. This investigation lays the groundwork to explore in depth the subjective and emotional evaluations fostered by semantically violating and incongruous semantic representations from a psycholinguistic perspective, paving the way for expanding the investigation of these constructions to a neurophysiological level.
Topic Areas: Syntax and Combinatorial Semantics, Control, Selection, and Executive Processes