Native speakers understand familiar idioms (e.g., "over the moon") and conventional metaphors (e.g., describing time as a doctor) quickly and easily. In two eye-tracking studies we considered how native speakers are able to make sense of fundamentally "unfamiliar" figurative expressions. In Experiment 1 compared with literal…

In the present study we examined whether overlap in language across texts influences the integration of information into a coherent discourse representation for bilingual readers. Across two experiments highly proficient Spanish--English bilinguals read pairs of expository passages describing two fictional science facts while their eye-movements…