Cognitive linguists and empirical methods 9 conceptual metaphors are not necessarily employed "automatically"each and every time people use and understand particular kinds of language. 4. Conceptual metaphors motivate why certain words and expressions have the mean- ings they do,are part of speakers'conceptual systems and enable people to recognize something of why these words and phrases have the meanings they do AND are em- ployed automatically each and every time when people use and understand language. These different hypotheses must be examined by appropriate empirical methods.Thus,1 and 2 are surely within the domain of cognitive linguistics research.But 3 and 4 require the "indirect methods"of cognitive psychology/psycholinguistics.These methods are,again, "indirect"in that they do not require people to introspect about their own,mostly un- conscious,mental processes.Rather,the right method will provide data that enables the researchers to draw inferences about underlying mental processes(e.g.,people automati- cally accessing tacit conceptual metaphors during on-line metaphor comprehension).My point here,more generally,is that cognitive linguists must be sensitive to the different levels at which "linguistic understanding"can be studied and explained,and recognize that their own methods of systematic,conscious analysis of linguistic expressions cannot provide the needed insights into"automatic"language production or processing. 5.Examples of relevant methods Let me now briefly describe some methods that experimental psycholinguists have suc- cessfully employed in testing various implications of cognitive linguistic ideas,primarily about conceptual metaphors,as described above.These various techniques are aimed at examining hypotheses 3 and 4 above. 5.1 Mental imagery The first method for examining hypothesis 3 is to investigate people's mental imagery for conventional phrases.For instance,do people know why the expression "spill the beans" has the figurative meaning,"reveal the secret."People are poor at answering this question, but one can elicit people's mostly unconscious knowledge about,in this case,concep- tual metaphors,using a more indirect method by having people form mental images for linguistic expressions(Gibbs O'Brien 1990;Gibbs,Strom,Spivey-Knowlton 1997). Consider the idiom "spill the beans."Try to form a mental image for this phrase and then ask yourself the following questions.Where are the beans before they are spilled?How big is the container?Are the beans cooked or uncooked?Is the spilling accidental or inten- tional?Where are the beans once they've been spilled?Are the beans in a nice,neat pile? Where are the beans supposed to be?After the beans are spilled,are they easy to retrieve? Most people have definite responses to these questions about their mental images for idioms.They generally say that the beans were in some pot that is about the size of a person's head,the beans are uncooked,the spilling of the beans is accidental,the spilled beans are all over a floor and are difficult to retrieve.This consistency in people's intuitions
JB[v.20020404] Prn:12/04/2007; 10:05 F: HCP1801.tex / p.8 (486-553) Cognitive linguists and empirical methods conceptual metaphors are not necessarily employed “automatically” each and every time people use and understand particular kinds of language. 4. Conceptual metaphors motivate why certain words and expressions have the meanings they do, are part of speakers’ conceptual systems and enable people to recognize something of why these words and phrases have the meanings they do AND are employed automatically each and every time when people use and understand language. These different hypotheses must be examined by appropriate empirical methods. Thus, 1 and 2 are surely within the domain of cognitive linguistics research. But 3 and 4 require the “indirect methods” of cognitive psychology/psycholinguistics. These methods are, again, “indirect” in that they do not require people to introspect about their own, mostly unconscious, mental processes. Rather, the right method will provide data that enables the researchers to draw inferences about underlying mental processes (e.g., people automatically accessing tacit conceptual metaphors during on-line metaphor comprehension). My point here, more generally, is that cognitive linguists must be sensitive to the different levels at which “linguistic understanding” can be studied and explained, and recognize that their own methods of systematic, conscious analysis of linguistic expressions cannot provide the needed insights into “automatic” language production or processing. . Examples of relevant methods Let me now briefly describe some methods that experimental psycholinguists have successfully employed in testing various implications of cognitive linguistic ideas, primarily about conceptual metaphors, as described above. These various techniques are aimed at examining hypotheses 3 and 4 above. . Mental imagery The first method for examining hypothesis 3 is to investigate people’s mental imagery for conventional phrases. For instance, do people know why the expression “spill the beans” has the figurative meaning, “reveal the secret.” People are poor at answering this question, but one can elicit people’s mostly unconscious knowledge about, in this case, conceptual metaphors, using a more indirect method by having people form mental images for linguistic expressions (Gibbs & O’Brien 1990; Gibbs, Strom, & Spivey-Knowlton 1997). Consider the idiom “spill the beans.” Try to form a mental image for this phrase and then ask yourself the following questions. Where are the beans before they are spilled? How big is the container? Are the beans cooked or uncooked? Is the spilling accidental or intentional? Where are the beans once they’ve been spilled? Are the beans in a nice, neat pile? Where are the beans supposed to be? After the beans are spilled, are they easy to retrieve? Most people have definite responses to these questions about their mental images for idioms. They generally say that the beans were in some pot that is about the size of a person’s head, the beans are uncooked, the spilling of the beans is accidental, the spilled beans are all over a floor and are difficult to retrieve. This consistency in people’s intuitions
10 Raymond W.Gibbs,Jr. about their mental images is quite puzzling if one assumes that the meanings of idioms are arbitrarily determined.People's descriptions about their mental images for idioms reveal some of the metaphorical knowledge that motivates the meanings of idiomatic phrases. One study examined people's mental images for groups of idioms with similar figurative meanings,.such as anger(e.g,"blow your stack.”“hit the ceiling,”“flip your lid”)(Gibbs& O'Brien 1990).Participants were asked to describe their mental images for these idioms and to answer questions about the causes,intentionality,and manner of actions in their mental images for these phrases. Not surprisingly,people give many different responses across the different idioms pre- sented,and one challenge for researchers is to systematically categorize these into different, meaningful groups.Psychologists are reasonably good at coding different human behav- iors,but experience greater difficulty analyzing naturalistic linguistic expressions.This is one place where my own study of cognitive linguistics has served me quite well in helping me to do experimental research. Gibbs and O'Brien(1990)actually found that participants'descriptions of their men- tal images were remarkably consistent for different idioms with similar figurative mean- ings.The general schemas underlying people's images were not simply representative of the idioms'figurative meanings,but captured more specific aspects of the kinesthetic events with the images.For example,the anger idioms such as"flip your lid"and"hit the ceiling"all refer to the concept of "getting angry,"but participants specifically imagined for these phrases some force causing a container to release pressure in a violent manner. There is nothing in the surface forms of these different idioms to tightly constrain the im- ages participants reported.After all,lids can be flipped and ceilings can be hit in a wide variety of ways,caused by many different circumstances.But the participants'protocols in this study revealed little variation in the general events that took place in their images for idioms with similar meanings. Participants'responses to the questions about the causes and consequences of the ac- tions described in their images were also highly consistent.Consider the most frequent responses to the probe questions for the anger idioms(e.g.,"blow your stack,""flip your lid,""hit the ceiling").When imagining anger idioms,people reported that pressure(i.e., stress or frustration)causes the action,that one has little control over the pressure once it builds,its violent release is done unintentionally(e.g.,the blowing of the stack)and that once the release has taken place(i.e.,once the ceiling has been hit,the lid flipped,the stack blown),it is difficult to reverse the action.We speculated that people's images for the anger idioms are based on folk conceptions of certain physical events.That is,people use their embodied knowledge about the behavior of heated fluid in containers(e.g.,the bodies as containers and bodily fluids within them)and map this knowledge onto the target domain of anger to help them conceptualize in more concrete terms what is understood about the concept of anger.Various specific entailments result from these general metaphori- cal mappings,ones that provide specific insight into people's consistent responses about the causes,intentionality,manner,and consequences of the activities described by stacks blowing,lids flipping,ceilings being hit and so on. We did not claim that people necessarily form mental images during ordinary idiom comprehension.But asking people to form mental images,and answer specific questions
JB[v.20020404] Prn:12/04/2007; 10:05 F: HCP1801.tex / p.9 (553-615) Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. about their mental images is quite puzzling if one assumes that the meanings of idioms are arbitrarily determined. People’s descriptions about their mental images for idioms reveal some of the metaphorical knowledge that motivates the meanings of idiomatic phrases. One study examined people’s mental images for groups of idioms with similar figurative meanings, such as anger (e.g., “blow your stack,” “hit the ceiling,” “flip your lid”) (Gibbs & O’Brien 1990). Participants were asked to describe their mental images for these idioms and to answer questions about the causes, intentionality, and manner of actions in their mental images for these phrases. Not surprisingly, people give many different responses across the different idioms presented, and one challenge for researchers is to systematically categorize these into different, meaningful groups. Psychologists are reasonably good at coding different human behaviors, but experience greater difficulty analyzing naturalistic linguistic expressions. This is one place where my own study of cognitive linguistics has served me quite well in helping me to do experimental research. Gibbs and O’Brien (1990) actually found that participants’ descriptions of their mental images were remarkably consistent for different idioms with similar figurative meanings. The general schemas underlying people’s images were not simply representative of the idioms’ figurative meanings, but captured more specific aspects of the kinesthetic events with the images. For example, the anger idioms such as “flip your lid” and “hit the ceiling” all refer to the concept of “getting angry,” but participants specifically imagined for these phrases some force causing a container to release pressure in a violent manner. There is nothing in the surface forms of these different idioms to tightly constrain the images participants reported. After all, lids can be flipped and ceilings can be hit in a wide variety of ways, caused by many different circumstances. But the participants’ protocols in this study revealed little variation in the general events that took place in their images for idioms with similar meanings. Participants’ responses to the questions about the causes and consequences of the actions described in their images were also highly consistent. Consider the most frequent responses to the probe questions for the anger idioms (e.g., “blow your stack,” “flip your lid,” “hit the ceiling”). When imagining anger idioms, people reported that pressure (i.e., stress or frustration) causes the action, that one has little control over the pressure once it builds, its violent release is done unintentionally (e.g., the blowing of the stack) and that once the release has taken place (i.e., once the ceiling has been hit, the lid flipped, the stack blown), it is difficult to reverse the action. We speculated that people’s images for the anger idioms are based on folk conceptions of certain physical events. That is, people use their embodied knowledge about the behavior of heated fluid in containers (e.g., the bodies as containers and bodily fluids within them) and map this knowledge onto the target domain of anger to help them conceptualize in more concrete terms what is understood about the concept of anger. Various specific entailments result from these general metaphorical mappings, ones that provide specific insight into people’s consistent responses about the causes, intentionality, manner, and consequences of the activities described by stacks blowing, lids flipping, ceilings being hit and so on. We did not claim that people necessarily form mental images during ordinary idiom comprehension. But asking people to form mental images, and answer specific questions
Cognitive linguists and empirical methods 11 about them,reveals significant constraints that conceptual metaphors play in motivating why conventional phrases have the meanings they do.Thus,conceptual metaphors appear to be the main link between many idioms and their figurative meanings.Once more,this tacit knowledge could not be uncovered by simply asking people about why idioms mean what they do.Yet the indirect method of forming mental images can provide such insights. 5.2 Context-sensitive judgments about metaphorical meaning A different method for examining hypothesis 3 is to assess people's judgments of similarity between idioms and different discourse contexts.Nayak and Gibbs (1990)hypothesized that contexts provide information about specific metaphoric mappings that cue readers to the specific figurative meanings of idioms.Participants in one experiment were presented with short scenarios about a particular emotion concept that were constructed to prime one of the metaphorical mappings inherent in its prototypical structure.Consider the following example: Mary was very tense about this evening's dinner party.The fact that Bob had not come home to help was making her fume.She was getting hotter with every passing minute. Dinner would not be ready before the guests arrived.As it got closer to five o'clock the pressure was really building up.Mary's tolerance was reaching its limits.When Bob strolled at ten minutes to five whistling and smiling,Mary a.blew her stack b.bit his head off The story was written to prime the metaphorical mapping ANGER IS HEAT IN A PRES- SURIZED CONTAINER by depicting Mary's increasing anger in terms of increasing pres- sure and heat.The use of phrases such as "very tense,making her fume,getting hotter, the pressure was really building up"and "reaching it's limits"are specific references to this mapping.Participants rated the appropriateness of each idiom ending for the given sce- nario.If people access the metaphoric mapping reflected in an idiom's lexical structure, they should interpret"blew her top"as being more appropriate than "bit his head off" even though both phrases are grammatically and conceptually(at the same stage of the prototype)appropriate for the given scenario. But now consider a slightly different scenario that primes a different conceptual metaphor,ANGRY BEHAVIOR IS ANIMAL BEHAVIOR,and should result in different expectations: Mary was getting very grouchy about this evening's dinner party. She prowled around the house waiting for Bob to come home to help. She was growling under her breath about Bob's lateness. Her mood was becoming more savage with every passing minute. As it got closer to five o'clock Mary was ferociously angry with Bob. When Rob strolled in at 4;30 whistling and smiling,Mary bit his head off blew her top
JB[v.20020404] Prn:12/04/2007; 10:05 F: HCP1801.tex / p.10 (615-683) Cognitive linguists and empirical methods about them, reveals significant constraints that conceptual metaphors play in motivating why conventional phrases have the meanings they do. Thus, conceptual metaphors appear to be the main link between many idioms and their figurative meanings. Once more, this tacit knowledge could not be uncovered by simply asking people about why idioms mean what they do. Yet the indirect method of forming mental images can provide such insights. . Context-sensitive judgments about metaphorical meaning A different method for examining hypothesis 3 is to assess people’s judgments of similarity between idioms and different discourse contexts. Nayak and Gibbs (1990) hypothesized that contexts provide information about specific metaphoric mappings that cue readers to the specific figurative meanings of idioms. Participants in one experiment were presented with short scenarios about a particular emotion concept that were constructed to prime one of the metaphorical mappings inherent in its prototypical structure. Consider the following example: Mary was very tense about this evening’s dinner party. The fact that Bob had not come home to help was making her fume. She was getting hotter with every passing minute. Dinner would not be ready before the guests arrived. As it got closer to five o’clock the pressure was really building up. Mary’s tolerance was reaching its limits. When Bob strolled at ten minutes to five whistling and smiling, Mary a. blew her stack b. bit his head off The story was written to prime the metaphorical mapping ANGER IS HEAT IN A PRESSURIZED CONTAINER by depicting Mary’s increasing anger in terms of increasing pressure and heat. The use of phrases such as “very tense, making her fume, getting hotter, the pressure was really building up” and “reaching it’s limits” are specific references to this mapping. Participants rated the appropriateness of each idiom ending for the given scenario. If people access the metaphoric mapping reflected in an idiom’s lexical structure, they should interpret “blew her top” as being more appropriate than “bit his head off” even though both phrases are grammatically and conceptually (at the same stage of the prototype) appropriate for the given scenario. But now consider a slightly different scenario that primes a different conceptual metaphor, ANGRY BEHAVIOR IS ANIMAL BEHAVIOR, and should result in different expectations: Mary was getting very grouchy about this evening’s dinner party. She prowled around the house waiting for Bob to come home to help. She was growling under her breath about Bob’s lateness. Her mood was becoming more savage with every passing minute. As it got closer to five o’clock Mary was ferociously angry with Bob. When Rob strolled in at 4;30 whistling and smiling, Mary bit his head off blew her top
2 Raymond W.Gibbs,Jr. In this case,"bit his head off"appears to be more appropriate than in the earlier contexts because the mental model is structured according to the metaphor ANGRY BEHAVIOR IS ANIMAL BEHAVIOR.This suggests that idioms must reflect the same metaphorical mapping information as its context to be considered most appropriate.In fact,the results clearly showed that the metaphoric mappings underlying idiomatic phrases affect partic- ipants'interpretation of the meanings and appropriate use of these figurative expressions. Participants were sensitive to the congruence between the metaphoric information in id- ioms and contexts.It appears that the mapping of the conceptual information in discourse contexts to people's knowledge about conceptual metaphors determines readers'intu- itions about the appropriate use of idioms.These findings provide experimental evidence in support of hypothesis 3 that conceptual metaphors influence people's interpretation of why idioms mean what they do and are used in specific discourse contexts. 5.3 Embodied intuitions and metaphorical inferences One of the reasons why cognitive psychologists are skeptical of cognitive linguistic work is because of the inherent circularity in reasoning from language to underlying concepts to language again.Cognitive psychologists seek ways of stepping outside of the language to language circle by having independent ways of predicting in advance something about lin- guistic meaning,as opposed to postulating backward-looking reasons or motivations for why some specific word or phrase has the meaning it does.One strategy for doing this in respect to hypothesis 3 is to look independently at people's nonlinguistic knowledge about source domains and then use this to make predictions about the meanings of metaphor- ical phrases referring to target domains.My experimental strategy to see if this might be true was to make specific predictions about what various idioms,say those motivated by ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER,actually mean by looking at the infer- ences that arise from the mapping of people's nonlinguistic knowledge of heated fluid in a container onto the idea of anger (Gibbs 1992). Participants in this study were asked about their understanding of events correspond- ing to particular source domains in various conceptual metaphors(e.g.,the source domain of heated fluid in a container for ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER).For instance,participants were asked to imagine the embodied experience of a sealed con- tainer filled with fluid,and then they were asked something about causation (e.g.,"What would cause the container to explode?"),intentionality (e.g.,"Does the container explode on purpose or does it explode through no volition of its own?"),and manner(e.g.,"Does the explosion of the container occur in a gentle or a violent manner?"). Participants gave highly consistent responses to these questions.Thus,people re- sponded that the cause of a sealed container exploding its contents out is the internal pressure caused by the increase in the heat of the fluid inside the container,that this ex- plosion is unintentional because containers and fluid have no intentional agency,and that the explosion occurs in a violent manner.This provides a rough,nonlinguistic profile of people's understanding of a particular source domain concept(i.e.,"image-schematic structures")of the source domains
JB[v.20020404] Prn:12/04/2007; 10:05 F: HCP1801.tex / p.11 (683-754) Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. In this case, “bit his head off” appears to be more appropriate than in the earlier contexts because the mental model is structured according to the metaphor ANGRY BEHAVIOR IS ANIMAL BEHAVIOR. This suggests that idioms must reflect the same metaphorical mapping information as its context to be considered most appropriate. In fact, the results clearly showed that the metaphoric mappings underlying idiomatic phrases affect participants’ interpretation of the meanings and appropriate use of these figurative expressions. Participants were sensitive to the congruence between the metaphoric information in idioms and contexts. It appears that the mapping of the conceptual information in discourse contexts to people’s knowledge about conceptual metaphors determines readers’ intuitions about the appropriate use of idioms. These findings provide experimental evidence in support of hypothesis 3 that conceptual metaphors influence people’s interpretation of why idioms mean what they do and are used in specific discourse contexts. . Embodied intuitions and metaphorical inferences One of the reasons why cognitive psychologists are skeptical of cognitive linguistic work is because of the inherent circularity in reasoning from language to underlying concepts to language again. Cognitive psychologists seek ways of stepping outside of the language to language circle by having independent ways of predicting in advance something about linguistic meaning, as opposed to postulating backward-looking reasons or motivations for why some specific word or phrase has the meaning it does. One strategy for doing this in respect to hypothesis 3 is to look independently at people’s nonlinguistic knowledge about source domains and then use this to make predictions about the meanings of metaphorical phrases referring to target domains. My experimental strategy to see if this might be true was to make specific predictions about what various idioms, say those motivated by ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER, actually mean by looking at the inferences that arise from the mapping of people’s nonlinguistic knowledge of heated fluid in a container onto the idea of anger (Gibbs 1992). Participants in this study were asked about their understanding of events corresponding to particular source domains in various conceptual metaphors (e.g., the source domain of heated fluid in a container for ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER). For instance, participants were asked to imagine the embodied experience of a sealed container filled with fluid, and then they were asked something about causation (e.g., “What would cause the container to explode?”), intentionality (e.g., “Does the container explode on purpose or does it explode through no volition of its own?”), and manner (e.g., “Does the explosion of the container occur in a gentle or a violent manner?”). Participants gave highly consistent responses to these questions. Thus, people responded that the cause of a sealed container exploding its contents out is the internal pressure caused by the increase in the heat of the fluid inside the container, that this explosion is unintentional because containers and fluid have no intentional agency, and that the explosion occurs in a violent manner. This provides a rough, nonlinguistic profile of people’s understanding of a particular source domain concept (i.e., “image-schematic structures”) of the source domains
Cognitive linguists and empirical methods 13 If hypothesis 3 is correct,people's intuitions about various source domains should then map onto their conceptualizations of different target domains in very predictable ways.Not surprisingly,when people understand anger idioms,such as "blow your stack," "flip your lid,"or"hit the ceiling,"they inferred that the cause of anger is internal pressure, that the expression of anger is unintentional,and is done in an abrupt violent manner. People did not draw the same inferences about causation,intentionality,and manner when comprehending literal paraphrases of idioms,such as "get very angry."Additional experiments showed that people find idioms to be more appropriate and easier to un- derstand when they are seen in discourse contexts that are consistent with the various entailments of these phrases,which,again,were predicted in advance from the nonlin- guistic analysis of the source domain concepts.In general,these psycholinguistic studies are significant for hypothesis 3 because they provide independent,nonlinguistic ways of predicting something about the specific metaphorical meanings some linguistic expres- sions are likely to possess.These psychological findings are hard to reconcile with the view that the figurative meanings of idioms are determined only on the basis of their in- dividual lexical items or have the meanings they do for arbitrary,or historically opaque reasons.Contemporary speakers appear to have tacit intuitions about their metaphorical understanding of certain abstract concepts that lead them to talk about these concepts in particular metaphoric ways.No other theory of idiomaticity comes close to being able to describe exactly why it is that idioms have the very specific meanings they do for con- temporary speakers or why people appear to quickly draw specific inferences about what idioms mean. 5.4 Not all methods work! In all fairness,the debate over conceptual metaphors in cognitive psychology has provided evidence that seems contrary to some of the putative predictions of cognitive linguis- tics.Consider the work of McGlone (1996)who examined people's verbal paraphrases for linguistic metaphors.Participants in a first experiment paraphrased verbal metaphors, such as "The lecture was a three-course meal."Only 24%of these paraphrases contained any references consistent with underlying conceptual metaphors,such as IDEAS ARE FOOD.Even when participants were asked to give figurative paraphrases of the verbal metaphors,they still most frequently produced paraphrases inconsistent with related con- ceptual metaphors.Thus,when given the verbal metaphor "Dr.Moreland's lecture was a three-course meal for the mind,"only 1/3 of the paraphrased mentioned source domain terms (e.g.,food)related to the conceptual metaphor IDEAS ARE FOOD.Nonetheless, almost all of the metaphorical paraphrases reflected some recognition of the stereotyp- ical properties of three-course meals that might be attributed to lectures,such as "large quantity,"and "variety."A third study asked participants to rate the similarity between different metaphorical expressions.The data showed that people do not perceive expres- sions motivated by conceptual metaphor to be any more similar in meaning than they did expressions motivated by different conceptual metaphors.Thus,"Dr.Moreland's lec- ture was steak for the mind"was not seen as more similar to "Dr.Moreland's lecture was a three-course meal for the mind"than was "Dr.Moreland's lecture was a full tank of
JB[v.20020404] Prn:12/04/2007; 10:05 F: HCP1801.tex / p.12 (754-788) Cognitive linguists and empirical methods If hypothesis 3 is correct, people’s intuitions about various source domains should then map onto their conceptualizations of different target domains in very predictable ways. Not surprisingly, when people understand anger idioms, such as “blow your stack,” “flip your lid,” or “hit the ceiling,” they inferred that the cause of anger is internal pressure, that the expression of anger is unintentional, and is done in an abrupt violent manner. People did not draw the same inferences about causation, intentionality, and manner when comprehending literal paraphrases of idioms, such as “get very angry.” Additional experiments showed that people find idioms to be more appropriate and easier to understand when they are seen in discourse contexts that are consistent with the various entailments of these phrases, which, again, were predicted in advance from the nonlinguistic analysis of the source domain concepts. In general, these psycholinguistic studies are significant for hypothesis 3 because they provide independent, nonlinguistic ways of predicting something about the specific metaphorical meanings some linguistic expressions are likely to possess. These psychological findings are hard to reconcile with the view that the figurative meanings of idioms are determined only on the basis of their individual lexical items or have the meanings they do for arbitrary, or historically opaque reasons. Contemporary speakers appear to have tacit intuitions about their metaphorical understanding of certain abstract concepts that lead them to talk about these concepts in particular metaphoric ways. No other theory of idiomaticity comes close to being able to describe exactly why it is that idioms have the very specific meanings they do for contemporary speakers or why people appear to quickly draw specific inferences about what idioms mean. . Not all methods work! In all fairness, the debate over conceptual metaphors in cognitive psychology has provided evidence that seems contrary to some of the putative predictions of cognitive linguistics. Consider the work of McGlone (1996) who examined people’s verbal paraphrases for linguistic metaphors. Participants in a first experiment paraphrased verbal metaphors, such as “The lecture was a three-course meal.” Only 24% of these paraphrases contained any references consistent with underlying conceptual metaphors, such as IDEAS ARE FOOD. Even when participants were asked to give figurative paraphrases of the verbal metaphors, they still most frequently produced paraphrases inconsistent with related conceptual metaphors. Thus, when given the verbal metaphor “Dr. Moreland’s lecture was a three-course meal for the mind,” only 1/3 of the paraphrased mentioned source domain terms (e.g., food) related to the conceptual metaphor IDEAS ARE FOOD. Nonetheless, almost all of the metaphorical paraphrases reflected some recognition of the stereotypical properties of three-course meals that might be attributed to lectures, such as “large quantity,” and “variety.” A third study asked participants to rate the similarity between different metaphorical expressions. The data showed that people do not perceive expressions motivated by conceptual metaphor to be any more similar in meaning than they did expressions motivated by different conceptual metaphors. Thus, “Dr. Moreland’s lecture was steak for the mind” was not seen as more similar to “Dr. Moreland’s lecture was a three-course meal for the mind” than was “Dr. Moreland’s lecture was a full tank of