SS24: Design, Execution, and Analysis of a Psycholinguistic Experiment on Metaphor Comprehension

Course description

Metaphors such as "My lawyer is a shark" are understood seemingly fast and efficiently despite the fact that their literal meaning (e.g., fish) differs from what they convey metaphorically (e.g., vicious). But, is the literal meaning (e.g., fish) available during metaphor comprehension? Most authors agree that properties of the expression—such as familiarity and aptness—are key factors in the way a metaphor is processed, where highly familiar and highly apt metaphors are processed faster than low familiar ones and their literal meaning is less available. Yet, the role of individual differences—such as creativity, analogical reasoning, or executive function—during metaphor comprehension has been less explored.

This is a hands-on course, where we will design, conduct, and analyze an experiment that explores individual variation in metaphor comprehension. Each group will design and run an experiment in which metaphor comprehension will be measured (e.g., the maze task, picture matching). Then, according to the hypothesis established by each group, individual variables will be tested in each participant (e.g., memory span, theory of mind). Finally, the data will be analyzed and interpreted using simple statistical measures. The final outcome of this course will be a 5-page group paper that includes the whole process in five sections (i.e., literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and references).