Does the coexistence of literal and figurative meanings in metaphor comprehension yield novel meaning?: Empirical testing based on quantum cognition.

Abstract

Metaphor comprehension is a creative process that may lead to the emergence of novel meaning. Several studies have examined the emergence according to the interaction between the topic and vehicle. We focused on the other type of emergence in metaphor comprehension: the interaction between the literal and figurative meanings. This article hypothesized that the whole meaning of some metaphorical sentences can be regarded as a superposition state of their literal and figurative meanings, which cannot be reduced to the simple composition of each meaning. To test this hypothesis, we applied QQ equality to metaphor comprehension and conducted an experiment using 21 metaphorical sentences and 1,000 participants. The model comparisons suggested that about 15% of comprehension of metaphorical sentences can be regarded as resulting from a superposition state of literal and metaphorical understanding. This result sheds new light on the emergent function and cognitive state surrounding metaphor comprehension.