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The Production of Metaphoric Expressions in Spontaneous Speech: A Controlled-Setting Experiment

We introduce a novel experimental paradigm for eliciting metaphoric expressions in spontaneous speech, under controlled conditions. Participants were presented with a pair of words on a PC monitor and were asked to provide a verbal response describing a conceptual relation between the stimuli. The proportion of metaphoric responses depended on the stimuli in a predictable manner. A large proportion of metaphoric responses was obtained for stimuli that were derived from existing metaphors. The chronometric study of metaphor production in this paradigm produced 3 major findings: (a) a figurative-literal difference: responses that included metaphorical expressions showed greater reaction times (RTs) than responses with only literal expressions; (b) familiarity effect: responses that included more-familiar metaphorical expressions showed smaller RTs than responses that included less-familiar metaphorical expressions; (c) degree of metaphoricity effect: responses that included highly metaphorical expressions showed greater RTs than responses that included less metaphorical expressions. We discuss the processing implications of these results.