ABSTRACT
The account also implies that there is a continuum that varies from literal to metaphorical interpretation, depending on how much the interpreter must stretch the meaning of semantic features (Reyna, 1985, in press). Therefore, we assume that literal and metaphorical meaning differ, but by degree (cf. Winner, Levy, Kaplan, & Rosenblatt, 1988). This explains the fact that it is sometimes difficult to judge whether an interpretation is an extended literal sense of a word, common in childhood, or a metaphorical interpretation (Winner, 1988). It also explains how literal and metaphorical interpretation could proceed in parallel so that their effects converge rather than disrupt one another (Glucksberg, 1991; Keysar, 1989). The rationale for this convergence would be that shared gist, as well as similar pragmatic principles, support both literal and metaphorical interpretation. Pragmatic principles would allow interpreters to exploit conventional denotation as well as connotation, relations with other words, and knowledge of the context and the world in order to instantiate meanings (Kittay, 1987; Lehrer, 1970, 1992; Reyna, in press; Vosniadou, 1987a, 1989). The elevated rates of acceptance for false psychological interpretations indicate that children's difficulties primarily are in instantiating the appropriate metaphorical interpretation rather than in an inability to apprehend the broader gist (for analogous difficulties in reasoning, see Reyna, 1995).
