The Role of Suppression and Enhancement in Understanding Metaphors

Abstract

Participants read either a metaphorical prime sentence, such as That defense lawyer is a shark, or a baseline-prime sentence. The baseline-prime sentence was literally meaningful in Experiment 1 (e.g., That large hammerhead is a shark), nonsensical in Experiment 2 (e.g., His English notebook is a shark), and unrelated in Experiment 3 (e.g., That new student is a clown). After reading the prime sentence, participants verified a target property statement. Verification latencies for property statements relevant to the superordinate category (e.g., Sharks are tenacious) were faster after participants read the metaphor-prime sentence than after they read the baseline-prime sentence, producing an enhancement effect. In contrast, verification latencies for property statements relevant to only the basic-level meaning of the vehicle and not the superordinate (e.g., Sharks are good swimmers) were slower following the metaphor-prime versus the baseline-prime sentence, producing a suppression effect. As Glucksberg and Keysar's (1990) class inclusion theory of metaphor predicts, the enhancement and suppression effects demonstrate that the vehicle of a metaphor stands for the superordinate category of the vehicle, and not for its basic-level meaning.