Category Size, Feature Comparison, and the Comprehension of Figurative Propositions
- 1 June 1976
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Perceptual and Motor Skills
- Vol. 42 (3) , 811-818
- https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1976.42.3.811
Abstract
Two groups of 20 subjects made comparative judgments about either the similarity between the subject and predicate nouns linked in a metaphor or the goodness of a metaphor as a figure of speech. Psychological scaling of metaphorical propositions indicated that semantic decisions were internally consistent. Adjectives which reduced category (predicate noun) size in a proposition increased similarity and figural goodness. When two adjectives were used to modify subject and predicate nouns, similarity and figural goodness were higher in comparison to metaphors containing only one adjective. In addition, the number of highly salient semantic features shared by nouns was varied over replications. Nouns which shared two salient features were judged more similar and formed better figures of speech than those sharing only one feature. Results were discussed as evidence for comparison of features in the comprehension of semantic relations.Keywords
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