A total of 411 elementary school children seven to twelve years old read short prose passages and selected the most appropriate continuation sentence from four alternatives. The completion sentences were constructed so that the correct (target) response involved either an explicit (simile) or an implicit (metaphor) metaphorical comparison. It was…

Defining metaphor as "seeing a concept from one class in terms of a concept from another class," a study was devised that analyzed the degree to which two concepts occupy dissimilar positions with respect to their category or domain (within-domain distance), and the degree to which categories themselves are dissimilar (between-domain distance).…

Presents results of a study of fifth-grade students' ability to interpret novel metaphors and similes when provided with a subschemata of semantic attributes. (AEA)

A study investigated the immediate comprehension processes involved in the interpretation of English idiomatic expressions. Idioms such as "bury the hatchet" were presented to 48 college students in sentential contexts that either biased the subject toward a literal or a figurative interpretation or left the interpretation ambiguous. In control…

Investigates the hypothesis that, in the case of individual similes, bits of lexical information, or word knowledge, are predictably and absolutely essential to the resolution of similes. (HOD)

Examines the relations among general language competency factors such as word knowledge, comprehension, and paradigmatic/syntagmatic reasoning, and college developmental readers' ability to interpret two text formats designed to elicit either a literal or figurative interpretation. (DF)