ABSTRACT
Figurative expressions in metaphor form (e.g., Marriage is a journey) seem stronger and deeper than expressions in simile form (e.g., Marriage is like a journey). We ran a study to examine the nature of these judgments. Participants read short paragraphs describing either object attributes or relational structure and then made a forced choice of the grammatical form of a figurative expression mentioning the target concept referred to in the passages. The results showed that the metaphor form was chosen more often (1) for expressions with conventional bases, and (2) when figurative statements followed contexts containing relational information. We speculate about a possible linkage between conventionalization and relationality.
