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Towards a neurochronometric model of non-literal language comprehension: how priming figurative and literal meaning affects the brain response to metaphor

Poster Session C, Thursday, October 1, 10:45 am - 12:45 pm, Wangari Maathai

Federico Frau¹, Paolo Canal¹, Fabrizio Luciani¹, Riccardo Venturini¹, Luca Bischetti¹, Valentina Bambini¹; ¹Laboratory of Neurolinguistics and Experimental Pragmatics (NEPLab), University School for Advanced Studies IUSS Pavia

INTRODUCTION. Research on metaphor has long debated whether figurative meaning is accessed directly or indirectly, through distinct processing stages[1,2]. Competing theoretical accounts have been tested using ERPs, which show larger N400 for metaphors, followed by late effects (LPC, P600, etc.)[3]. While priming studies linked the N400 to lexical/semantic operations on literal meaning[4], an equivalent account is lacking for late effects. We hypothesize that late effects specifically reflect figurative meaning derivation[5], following the N400. METHODS AND RESULTS. We present two crossmodal masked priming experiments: Exp 1 replicating the effect of literal priming on N400 amplitude[4], and Exp 2 testing figurative priming on late ERP components. Using cosine similarity[6], figurative primes were operationalized as words semantically close to the figurative meaning but distant from the literal meaning (e.g., for 'That hairstyle is a bush', 'rasta', close to 'messy' but distant from 'bush'), while literal primes were close to the literal meaning but distant from the figurative one (e.g., 'berry', close to 'bush' but distant from 'messy'; Figure 1A, link: urly.it/31fvqy). EXPERIMENT 1. Metaphors and literal sentences were presented with or without a literal prime to 40 participants (Figure 1B). Without priming, metaphors showed a larger N400 followed by a late positivity relative to literal sentences; both effects disappeared with priming. At source-level, literal prime presentation triggered greater activity in the posterior cingulate cortex for metaphors in the N400 window, and greater prefrontal activity for literal sentences in the late window (Figure 2A, link: urly.it/31fvqz). EXPERIMENT 2. Metaphorical sentences were presented with a Literal ('berry'), Figurative ('rasta'), or Illegal ('asdmbar') prime to 39 participants (Figure 1C). The Illegal prime elicited a greater N400 than both other conditions. In the later window, the Figurative prime produced a greater sustained positivity than the Literal prime. At source-level, Figurative Primes modulated the final part of the late window, showing prefrontal activity extending to vision-related regions, possibly indexing the accomplishment of reanalysis processes and mental imagery involvement, while Literal primes were associated with greater (linguistic) prefrontal activity in the initial part of the late window, reflecting interference of literal aspects during figurative interpretation derivation (Figure 2B). DISCUSSION. Priming metaphors with literal or figurative properties reduced the N400, while the late positivity was specifically modulated by figurative properties, linking late effects to implicature derivation and global pragmatic interpretation. Crucially, our study shows that figurative interpretation occurs late: our findings allow to distinguish between earlier operations on lexical-semantic meaning[4] from the derivation of the speaker's intended meaning, which is fully accomplished in a later time window[5]. These results have theoretical implications for models of figurative language interpretation[7], supporting a multi-stage neurochronometric account of metaphor interpretation[8]. REFERENCES. [1]Janus & Bever (1985). JPsycholinguistRes. 14(5):473-487. [2]Bambini et al. (2021). CanJExpPsychol. 75(2):189-196. [3]Canal & Bambini (2023). In: Grimaldi, Brattico, Shtyrov, Eds. 583-612. Humana. [4]Weiland et al. (2014). FrontHumNeurosci. 8:583. [5]Bambini et al. (2016). FrontPsychol. 7:559. [6]Marelli (2017). Psihologija. 50(4): 503-520. [7]Sperber & Wilson (2008). In: Gibbs, Ed. 84-106. Cambridge University Press. [8]Bischetti et al. (2024). In: Ball, Müller, Spencer, Eds. 41-54. Wiley.

Topic Areas: Meaning: Discourse and Pragmatics,