CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS ARE NOT AUTOMATICALLY ACCESSED DURING IDIOM COMPREHENSION

Do conceptual analogies motivate idiom use and comprehension in discou rse? For example, a story in which a person is described as fuming wou ld be analogically consistent with an idiom such as blew her top, but inconsistent with an idiom such as bite his head off Earlier work by N ayak and Gibbs (1990) had suggested that people use such analogical in formation during idiom comprehension. We replicated their findings in an idiom choice task, suggesting that people can indeed make use of su ch knowledge. However, when reading times were used to assess idiom co mprehensibility, no effects of analogical consistency were found. We c onclude that conceptual analogies play little, if any, role in idiom c omprehension unless people have the time (and motivation) to make cons idered judgments.