隱喻建立的聯結：是否與慣例性有關？

Making Connections with Metaphors: Does Conventionality Matter?

關於促發（priming）在字詞與句子識別作業的先前研究，對隱喻（metaphor）在文句瞭解上的效果提供證據：支持概念性隱喻（conceptual metaphor）可以將文句間的片段聯結起來。本研究使用不同之促發方式來延伸先前的發現，並檢驗文句間關係聯結的形成是否依賴隱喻的慣例性（熟悉度）。雖然隱喻一致性（metaphorical consistency）的效果並不紮實，新奇性與慣例性隱喻（conventional metaphors）都對隱喻的相關字詞造成促發。此結果暗示隱喻的慣例性並非是聯結文句間片段之必要條件。但是在一個250毫秒促發呈現（prime presentations）與200毫秒反應限期（response deadlines）之字詞識別作業中，慣例性隱喻造成促發而新奇隱喻則不然。本文最後討論此研究結果與層級包含（Class Inclusion）和概念性隱喻理論的關係。

Previous research on the effects of metaphor on text comprehension provided evidence that conceptual metaphors can connect parts of a text representation, as evidenced by priming in word and sentence recognition tests. This study extended the previous findings with a different priming methodology, and investigated whether forming connections depends on the conventionality (familiarity) of the metaphors used. Although the effects of metaphorical consistency were not robust (significant priming effects were evident only after post-hoc filtering of the data to remove subjects who did not attend to the task), both novel and conventional metaphors were found to produce priming for metaphor-related words and sentences, suggesting that conventionality was not necessary for the metaphors to make connections. When brief (250 ms) prime presentations were combined with short (2000 ms) response deadlines in a word recognition task, however, conventional metaphors produced priming but novel metaphors did not. The relationship of the results to the Class Inclusion and Conceptual Metaphor theories of metaphor is discussed.