Differential bilateral involvement of the parietal gyrus during predicative metaphor processing: An auditory fMRI study

Despite the growing literature on figurative language processing, there is still debate as to which cognitive processes and neural bases are involved. Furthermore, most studies have focused on nominal metaphor processing without any context, and very few have used auditory presentation. We therefore investigated the neural bases of the comprehension of predicative metaphors presented in a brief context, in an auditory, ecological way. The comprehension of their literal counterparts served as a control condition. We also investigated the link between working memory and verbal skills and regional activation. Comparisons of metaphorical and literal conditions revealed bilateral activation of parietal areas including the left angular (lAG) and right inferior parietal gyri (rIPG) and right precuneus. Only verbal skills were associated with lAG (but not rIPG) activation. These results indicated that predicative metaphor comprehension share common activations with other metaphors. Furthermore, individual verbal skills could have an impact on figurative language processing.