Yu Yan, Gu Feng, Li Yongqing, Han Jianghua
Neurocognitive Laboratory for Linguistics and Semiotics, College of Literature and Journalism, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
Digital Convergence Laboratory of Chinese Cultural Inheritance and Global Communication, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
Front Psychol. 2024 May 2;15:1404498. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1404498. eCollection 2024.
Metaphor and simile, two prevalent forms of figurative language widely employed in daily communication, serve as significant research subjects in linguistics. The Career of Metaphor Theory in cognitive linguistics posits that as conventionality increases, the cognitive mechanisms of metaphor comprehension shift from "comparison" to "categorization." In line with this notion, prior electrophysiological investigations have revealed that novel metaphors elicit a stronger N400 brain response compared to conventional metaphors. However, the observed N400 difference between conventional and novel metaphors may merely stem from the familiarity contrast between them, as conventional metaphors are typically more familiar than novel ones. To address this dichotomy, the present study not only compared the N400 responses between conventional and novel metaphors but also between conventional and novel similes. While conventional and novel similes differ in familiarity, similar to conventional and novel metaphors, both are processed via "comparison" mechanisms. The results revealed that novel metaphors elicited larger N400 amplitudes compared to conventional metaphors, aligning with previous findings. In contrast, no significant N400 differences were observed between conventional and novel similes, suggesting that familiarity disparity is unlikely to account for N400 distinctions. Our findings imply that conventional and novel metaphors undergo distinct cognitive processing mechanisms ("comparison" versus "categorization"), thereby providing further empirical validation for the Career of Metaphor Theory.
隐喻和明喻是日常交流中广泛使用的两种常见的比喻语言形式，是语言学中的重要研究对象。认知语言学中的隐喻生涯理论认为，随着常规性的增加，隐喻理解的认知机制从“比较”转变为“分类”。与此观点一致，先前的电生理研究表明，与常规隐喻相比，新颖隐喻会引发更强的N400脑反应。然而，常规隐喻和新颖隐喻之间观察到的N400差异可能仅仅源于它们之间的熟悉度差异，因为常规隐喻通常比新颖隐喻更熟悉。为了解决这一二分法，本研究不仅比较了常规隐喻和新颖隐喻之间的N400反应，还比较了常规明喻和新颖明喻之间的N400反应。虽然常规明喻和新颖明喻在熟悉度上存在差异，与常规隐喻和新颖隐喻类似，但两者都是通过“比较”机制进行处理的。结果表明，与常规隐喻相比，新颖隐喻引发的N400波幅更大，这与先前的研究结果一致。相比之下，常规明喻和新颖明喻之间未观察到显著的N400差异，这表明熟悉度差异不太可能解释N400的差异。我们的研究结果表明，常规隐喻和新颖隐喻经历了不同的认知加工机制（“比较”与“分类”），从而为隐喻生涯理论提供了进一步的实证验证。
