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1. The Role of Working Memory and Derived Attention in
Metaphor Interpretation
By: Iskandar, Sam and Anne Baird
Journal of Psycholinguistics,43 (05): 568
-
555
Psycholinguistics

2. 1. Working memory: the temporary storage system which uses short-
term memory in conjunction with prior memory so that new
information can be processed as quickly as possible.
2. Short-term Memory: refers to the ability to store information
temporarily within one’s mind. It refers to a number of systems with
limited capacity concerned with the temporary retention of a variety
of materials.
3. Divided attention: is perhaps the most complex of these abilities and
involves simultaneously responding to multiple tasks, stimuli, or
different task demands.

3. • From the cognitive neuropsychological perspective, metaphorical
processing depends on an intact language system as well as a “higher
order” abilities through which one views language in relation to previous
knowledge, the context of the conversation, and social cues from the co-
conversant or author (Martin and McDonald 2003).
• These abilities also involve integrating information from various cognitive
and at times sensory-perceptual domains to generate novel inferences about
what is meant.

4.  The sequential/indirect
approach:
 This model suggests that
understanding metaphors
occurs in a series of steps.
 All phrases are processed
literally and the meaning of
the statement is judged for
accuracy. If the literal
meaning is found
inaccurate, it is sent to a
non-literal processing center
for decoding.
 The direct/ parallel
processing approach:
 This model proposes that
both literal and
metaphorical processing
occur in parallel rather than
in a successive steps e.g.,
let the cat out of the bag
which means to reveal a secret
or a surprise.

5.  Glucksberg et al., (1982) constructed a Stroop-like test in which
participants were told to judge whether the literal meaning of a
target word of a sentence was true or false while ignoring the
figurative meaning.
 The results showed that metaphorical processing of language occurs
automatically and that the inhibition of this processing burdens
cognitive resources for the task.

6.  The direct model suggests that divided attention is required in the
interpretation of metaphor because both the literal and the
metaphorical meanings are processed and hold in mind in order to
make conscious judgement.
 However, not all metaphors are processed the same way.

7.  Blasko and Connine (1993) study has shown that familiarity with
the metaphor helps the individual to understand it quickly.
 Their findings suggest that once an individual has encoded and
stored a sufficiently coherent and stable representation of a
metaphor in long-term memory, the mental search to find a
similarity between the two concepts represented by the metaphor
will occur unconsciously and automatically.

8.  Giora (1997) assumed that metaphors are only different from literal
language when novel, i.e. it is the saliency of the expression that
determines how easily it is processed.
 Saliency depends on conventionality, frequency, familiarity, and
prototypicality as it predicts that when a metaphor is familiar, both its
literal and figurative meanings are equally activated; but when it is
novel, the literal meaning is more likely to be activated than the
figurative meaning.

9. ◦ Aims of the study:
◦ Examining which cognitive processes may be required to
interpret the metaphors’ meaning is the core aim of this
study as it involve looking specifically at short-term
memory span, working memory, and divided attention.
◦ The researchers decided to focus on these abilities based
on literature suggesting a possible relationship between
them and the metaphor interpretation.

10. o (a) describe the range of metaphor interpretations given by
university students in order to understand whether concrete thinking
occurs amongst healthy young adults, and if so what the proportion of
this type of thinking is as compared to abstract responses
(b) assess the distribution of interpretations across four
categories: abstract-complete, abstract-partial, concrete, and unrelated.
o to assess whether short-term memory span, working memory, or
divided attention is most associated with abstract and accurate
interpretation of metaphors.

11. Methods:
The participants: were 40 students at the university of
Windsor Psychology Research Participant Pool (10 males, 30
female).
The materials:
The researchers used metaphor Interpretation test.
Neuropsychological measures.

12. 1. Metaphor Interpretation Test
The metaphor interpretation task developed for this study
included 20 items that were chosen with permission from a list of
metaphors normed by Katz et al., (1988). Subjects were asked :
The familiarity of the metaphor on a five point scale: not at all
familiar, somewhat familiar, quite familiar, highly familiar, and very
highly familiar.
Explanation of the metaphor.
The scoring system was informed by a combination of sources (by
Albert et al., (1990); Delis et al., 2001; Wechsler 2008; Glucksberg
2003)

13. The following general criteria for scoring were developed:
• Abstract Complete (AC): provides a full explanation of the
metaphor, using a superordinate category that is pertinent for
both the vehicle and topic of the metaphor.
• Abstract Partial (AP): provides an abstract explanation that is
incomplete or uses a superordinate category that is correct but
less pertinent to both the topic and the vehicle.
• Concrete (CT): provides a response that is indicative of
concrete thinking (e.g., concentrates on physical similarities
when a pertinent functional similarity is present; provides a
literally true statement that does not explain the similarity).
• Other (OT): clearly wrong responses, but not evidently due to
concreteness.

14. A tree is
an
umbrella
AC: “a tree
provides
shelter ”
AP: “a tree
provides
shadow to the
people in the
sunlight”
OT: “a tree
needs rain to
grow”
CT: a tree is
long at the
bottom and
circular at the
top”

15. 2. Neuropsychological Measures:
The measures below were used to evaluate short-term memory
span, working memory, and divided attention.
1. Digit Span [from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale: This
involved asking participants to repeat a series of digits.
Series length increased by one digit every two trial.
2. Digit span backward: was administered to evaluate working
memory. This task involves asking participants to repeat
digit sequences in the reverse order of presentation and
thereby placed a high demand on working memory

18. 3. Sentence Repetition Test: it was used to evaluate short-
term memory span. This is a measure of the limit of
complex verbal material that one can hold in mind
temporarily.
4. Auditory Consonant Trigrams Test (Brown 1958): was
used as a measure of divided attention. This task is an
index of information processing capacity as it is
considered effortful because it requires maintaining
information in working memory while completing a
distractor task.

19. Results and discussion:
• The findings show that short-term memory span, rather than working
memory or divided attention, predicts abstract and well formed (AC)
interpretation of metaphors. A lower short-term memory span was associated
with all other response types (AP, CT, and OT).
• Another finding was that providing concrete responses is not as closely
associated with short-term memory span, working memory, or divided
attention as is giving abstract partial responses.

20. Sentence repetition:
◦ Performance on this test was strongly related to being able to
provide abstract and well formed-interpretations and was
associated negatively with all other response types (AP, CT, and
OT).
 Performance on a divided attention task was not related to the
degree of abstraction shown on a metaphor interpretation test.

21.  The ability to retain complex verbal information in short-term
memory is important for providing full abstract responses.
 The relationship between verbal abstract thinking and working
memory is mainly due to the phonological loop component of
working memory tasks, or short-term memory span.

22.  The ability to hold small amounts of information in mind in the
face of distraction (i.e., divided attention) is not closely related to
the abstract thinking involved in metaphor interpretation.

23.  Iskandar, Sam and Anne Braid. ‘ The role of working
memory and divided attention in metaphor
interpretation’. Journal of psycholinguistic research,
43(5):555-568.

24. Thank you for your
attention