PROcessing MEtaphors: Neurochronometry, Acquisition and DEcay

Project Information

PROMENADE

Grant agreement ID: 101045733

DOI

10.3030/101045733

EC signature date 12 July 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 31 December 2027

Funded under

• European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 854 188,00

EU contribution

€ 1 854 188,00

Coordinated by

ISTITUTO UNIVERSITARIO DI STUDI SUPERIORI ( I.U.S.S.) DI PAVIA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PROMENADE (PROcessing MEtaphors: Neurochronometry, Acquisition and DEcay)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Metaphor has attracted the interests of scientists since antiquity, being at the same time a topic for research in humanities and more recently in neuroscience. We gained a lot of insights into the
processes through which we understand metaphors, framed either as a bridge between concepts or as an inference on how someone else sees the world. We have detected a range of distinct brain responses to metaphors. We know that children start to understand metaphors very early but cannot verbally explain them till the age of 10 and we have observed that patients might interpret figurative expressions concretely, being somehow stuck at the literal level of words. However, what we still miss is a comprehensive framework able to account for all these empirical findings in a unitary fashion.
The overarching objective of PROMENADE (2023-2027), PI Valentina Bambini, is to shape a comprehensive account of metaphor processing, starting from theoretical grounds in linguistic pragmatics and embracing a multidisciplinary program of empirical research on the brain’s electrical response, the acquisition patterns in typical development and the impairment in clinical groups. In particular, the project seeks to ascertain the role of mental images in metaphor, whether we ‘picture’ metaphorical meanings, how these sensory representations interact with propositional inferencing, and whether multimodality helps or hinders comprehension across populations. PROMENADE includes four WPs.
WP1 – Figurative Archive
It aims to create an open-access archive of figurative language expressions, hosting crafted as well as ecological metaphors and their psycholinguistic norms, in addition to promoting a campaign to increase metaphor awareness in society (#trovalametafora).
WP2 – Neurochronometry
It aims to chart the electrical activity during the metaphor comprehension processes through the use of the EEG technique. Experiments seek to identify stages of metaphor understanding and to measure the involvement of mental imagery.
WP3 – Acquisition
It aims to track down the developmental processes that lead to a full-fledged adult-like competence in metaphor understanding via cross-sectional and longitudinal EEG studies in middle childhood, in addition to promoting metaphor skills via the MetaCom training.
WP4 – Decay
It aims to look inside the black box of metaphor comprehension impairment and identify which mechanisms are disrupted across clinical groups. The project focuses on metaphor decay in schizophrenia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In the first two years, PROMENADE has collected the Figurative Archive, an open dataset of 997 Italian metaphors with norms that can be easily navigated via a web interface. The Figurative Archive is open to numerous applications in the spirit of open and reproducible science. For instance, it enables researchers to explore, analyze, and build upon the data for future research with different methodologies. Moreover, the Archive might serve to construct benchmarks for testing the figurative language abilities of Large Language Models. PROMENADE also launched the #trovalametafora (#findthemetaphor) campaign to promote metaphor awareness and communicative competence in the general population, involving different population groups.
In the Neurochronometry WP, PROMENADE designed novel experimental paradigms to test the seriality of processing via priming and to test the role of imagery via perceptual tasks. The basic assumptions of the project, i.e. that metaphor involves different processing phases and evokes complex mental images that are more vivid than those evoked by literal language, are supported by preliminary data analysis.
In the Acquisition WP, PROMENADE designed a novel and engaging experimental paradigm testing metaphor acceptability in children aged 8-10. We are currently collecting cross-sectional data, which will be further complemented. We expect to capture the neurophysiological signature of the shift from literal and non-salient to figurative interpretation.
In the Decay WP, PROMENADE collected fine-grained measures of metaphor comprehension from individuals with schizophrenia and healthy controls. The preliminary analysis indicates that visual images might hamper metaphor comprehension in the clinical group. We are currently completing collection from a neurological sample. We will use the acquired knowledge for further Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning applications to unravel patterns of metaphor interpretation across different clinical groups and to measure the utility of metaphor tests in clinical contexts.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

In PROMENADE, metaphor is - for the first time - studied in a unified framework that uses different cutting-edge techniques and considers different population groups. The outcome of the project will allow us to propose a comprehensive account of metaphor comprehension able to explain its costs and trajectories along the lifespan and in different brains. With these insights, we aim to advance the state-of-the-art in metaphor models and to promote novel applications in the domain of teaching and language rehabilitation.
By capitalizing on a large archive of metaphorical expressions and by bringing together an interdisciplinary team, we are developing innovative experimental designs and we are applying cutting-edge techniques from neuroscience and artificial intelligence to the study of metaphor. Data collected till now has shown that metaphor understanding is a complex multimodal process that straddles the borders between language and different domains of cognition, from imagery to mentalizing, making it one of the most sensitive tasks to capture changes in development and in clinical conditions.

Project Outlook