Metaphor comprehension: A computational theory

Metaphor comprehension involves an interaction between the meaning of the t opic and the vehicle tenus of the metaphor. Meaning is represented by vecto rs in a high-dimensional semantic space. Predication modifies the topic vec tor by merging it with selected features of the vehicle vector. The resulti ng metaphor vector can be evaluated by comparing it with known landmarks in the semantic space. Thus, metaphorical predication is treated in the prese nt model in exactly the same way as literal predication. Some experimental results concerning metaphor comprehension are simulated within this framewo rk, such as the nonreversibility of metaphors, priming of metaphors with li teral statements, and priming of literal statements with metaphors.