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.
