Directionality in figurative language interpretation: Prior activation determines details of feature attribution in metaphor processing

This poster presentation represents an attempt to harmonize unidirectional “mapping” from Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and cognitive linguistics with knowledge from cognitive neuroscience to explain how details of feature attribution are determined in metaphorical inferencing. Specifically, an adapted view of “mapping” (herein termed “conceptual filtering”) will be proposed. In this view, unidirectional feed-forward activation leads to a certain permutation of implications as non-shared domain elements of the initially activated conceptual domain revert to baseline and are thereby “filtered out” of subsequent analysis.