Interpreting metaphorical statements

The topics of metaphorical statements can vary considerably in abstractness, whereas the vehicles are often concrete. This study evaluated the appreciation and interpretation of metaphorical statements with abstract topics versus those with concrete topics, while taking into consideration of the two common linguistic forms (nominal metaphor and simile) of metaphorical statements. Experiment 1 showed that topic abstractness was positively associated with the aptness of similes. Experiment 2 found that comprehenders assessed more topic–vehicle similarities for sentences with abstract topics than for sentences with concrete topics, and more topic–vehicle similarities when topic–vehicle pairs were presented as metaphors than as similes. In addition, comprehenders often called upon their subjective experiences for interpretations. Experiment 3 indicated that these subjective experiences played an essential role in metaphorical comparison. These findings add the factor of topic abstractness to the literature about metaphorical language comprehension, and provide insight for research on similarity evaluation between abstract concepts and concrete concepts.