Looking at the brains behind figurative language-A quantitative meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies on metaphor, idiom, and irony processing

Neuropsychologia

Volumn 50, Issue 11, 2012, Pages 2669-2683

  Bohrn, Isabel C ^a   Altmann, Ulrike ^a   Jacobs, Arthur M ^a,b  

^a FREIE UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN   (Germany)

^b Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion (DINE)   (Germany)

Author keywords

IFG; Lateralization; Reading; Sarcasm; Theory of mind

Indexed keywords

AMYGDALOID NUCLEUS; ARTICLE; BRAIN LEVEL; FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING; HEMISPHERIC DOMINANCE; HUMAN; HUMAN EXPERIMENT; INFERIOR FRONTAL GYRUS; LANGUAGE PROCESSING; LITERATURE; MIDDLE FRONTAL GYRUS; NORMAL HUMAN; POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY; RIGHT HEMISPHERE; SYSTEMATIC REVIEW; TEMPORAL LOBE;

BRAIN; COMPREHENSION; DATABASES, FACTUAL; FUNCTIONAL LATERALITY; HUMANS; LANGUAGE; METAPHOR; NEUROIMAGING; PHOTIC STIMULATION;

EID: 84865545062     PISSN: 00283932     EISSN: 18733514     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.07.021     Document Type: Article

References (97)

1. Abbassie E., Kahlaoui K., Wilson M.A., Joanette Y. Processing the emotions in words: The complementary contributions of the left and right hemispheres. Cognitive Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience 2011, 11:372-385.
2. Ahrens K., Liu H., Lee C., Gong S., Fang S., Hsu Y. Functional MRI of conventional and anomalous metaphors in Mandarin Chinese. Brain and Language 2007, 100:163-171.
3. Anaki D., Faust M., Kravetz S. Cerebral hemispheric asymmetries in processing lexical metaphors. Neuropsychologia 1998, 36:691-700.
4. Bambini V., Gentili C., Ricciardi E., Bertinetto P.M., Pietrini P. Decomposing metaphor processing at the cognitive and neural level through functional magnetic resonance imaging. Brain Research Bulletin 2011, 86(3-4):203-216.
5. Bohrn, I. C., Altmann, U., Lubrich, O., Menninghaus, W., & Jacobs, A. M. (2012). Old proverbs in new skins - An fMRI study on defamiliarization. Frontiers in Psychology 3, 204. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00204.
6. Bookheimer S. Functional MRI of language: New approaches to understanding the cortical organization of semantic processing. Annual Review of Neuroscience 2002, 25:151-188.
7. Bottini G., Corcoran R., Sterzi R., Paulesu E.S.P., Scarpa P., Frackowiak R.S.J., et al. The role of the right hemisphere in the interpretation of the figurative aspects of language: A positron emission tomography activation study. Brain 1994, 117:1241-1253.
8. Boulenger V., Hauk O., Pulvermüller F. Grasping ideas with the motor system: Semantic somatotopy in idiom comprehension. Cerebral Cortex 2009, 19:1905-1914.
9. Brownel H.H., Simpson T.L., Bihrle A.M., Potter H.H., Gardner H. Appreciation of metaphoric alternative word meanings by left and right brain-damaged patients. Neuropsychologia 1990, 28:375-383.
10. Burgess C., Chiarello C. Neurocognitive mechanisms underlying metaphor comprehension and other figurative language. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 1996, 11:67-84.
11. Cacciari C., Tabossi P. The comprehension of idioms. Journal of Memory and Language 1988, 27:668-683.
12. Cardillo E.R., Watson C.E., Schmidt G.L., Kranjec A., Chatterjee A. From novel to familiar: Tuning the brain for metaphors. Neuroimage 2012, 59(4):3212-3221.
13. Chen E., Widick P., Chatterjee A. Functional-anatomical organization of predicate metaphor processing. Brain and Language 2008, 107:194-202.
14. Corbetta M., Shulman G.L. Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the Brain. Nature Neuroscience Reviews 2002, 5:201-215.
15. Corbetta M., Patel G., Shulman G.L. The reorienting system of the human brain: From environment to theory of mind. Neuron 2008, 58:306-324.
16. Coulson S., van Petten C. Conceptual integration and metaphor: An event-related potential study. Memory and Cognition 2002, 30(6):958-968.
17. Coulson S. Constructing meaning. Metaphor and Symbol 2006, 21:245-266.
18. Dennis M., Barnes M.A. Knowing the meaning, getting the point, bridging the gap, and carrying the message-Aspects of discourse following closed head-injury in childhood and adolescence. Brain and Language 1990, 39:428-446.
19. Diaz M.T., Barrett K.T., Hogstrom L.J. The influence of sentence novelty and figurativeness on brain activity. Neuropsychologia 2011, 49:320-330.
20. Eviatar Z., Just M.A. Brain correlates of discourse processing: An fMRI investigation of irony and conventional metaphor comprehension. Neuropsychologia 2006, 44:2348-2359.
21. Faust M., Mashal N. The role of the right cerebral hemisphere in processing novel metaphoric expressions taken from poetry: A divided visual field study. Neuropsychologia 2007, 45:860-870.
22. Faust M., Weisper S. Understanding metaphoric sentences in the two cerebral hemispheres. Brain and Cognition 2000, 43:186-191.
23. Fox M.D., Corbetta M., Snyder A.Z., Vincent J.L., Raichle M.E. Spontaneous. Neuronal activity distinguishes human dorsal and ventral attention systems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2006, 103:10046-10051.
24. Frith C.D., Frith U. Cognitive psychology-Interacting minds-A biological basis. Science 1999, 286:1692-1695.
25. Frith C.D., Frith U. The neural basis of mentalizing. Neuron 2006, 50:531-534.
26. Gallagher H.L., Happé F., Brunswick N., Fletcher P.C., Frith U., Frith C.D. Reading the mind in cartoons and stories: An fMRI study of "theory of mind" in verbal and nonverbal tasks. Neuropsychologia 2000, 38:11-21.
27. Gennari S.P., MacDonald M.C., Postle B.R., Seidenberg M.S. Context-dependent interpretation of words: Evidence for interactive neural processes. Neuroimage 2007, 35(3):1278-1286.
28. Gibbs R.W. Figurative thought and figurative language. Handbook of psycholinguistics 1994, 411-446. Academic Press, San Diego, CA, US. M.A. Gernsbacher (Ed.).
29. Gibbs R.W. What proverb understanding reveals about how people think. Psychological Bulletin 1995, 118:133-154.
30. Giora R. Understanding figurative and literal language: The graded salience hypothesis. Cognitive Linguistics 1997, 8:183-206.
31. Giora R., Zaindel E., Soroker N., Batori G., Kasher A. Differential effects of right- and left-hemispheric damage on understanding sarcasm and metaphor. Metaphor and Symbol 2000, 15:63-83.
32. Giora R., Fein O., Laadan D., Wolfson J., Zeituny M., Kidron R., et al. Expecting irony: Context versus salience-based effects. Metaphor and Symbol 2007, 22:119-146.
33. Goel V., Vartanian O. Dissociating the roles of right ventral lateral and dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex in generation and maintenance of hypotheses in set-shift problems. Cerebral Cortex 2005, 15:1170-1177.
34. Greenberg D.L., Rice H.J., Cooper J.J., Cabeza R., Rubin D.C., LaBar K.S. Co-activation of the amygdala, hippocampus and inferior frontal gyrus during autobiographical memory retrieval. Neuropsychologia 2005, 43:659-674.
35. Grice H.P. Logic and conversation. Syntax and semantics: Speech acts 1975, Vol. 3:41-58. Academic Press, New York.
36. Hampshire A., Chamberlain S.R., Monti M.M., Duncan J., Owen A.M. The role of the right inferior frontal gyrus: Inhibition and attentional control. Neuroimage 2010, 50:1313-1319.
37. Happè F.G.E. Communicative competence and theory of mind in autism: A test of relevance theory. Cognition 1993, 48:101-119.
38. Hillert D.G., Buracas G.T. The neural substrates of spoken idiom comprehension. Language and Cognitive Processes 2009, 24:1370-1391.
39. Jung-Beeman M. Bilateral brain processes for comprehending natural language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 2005, 9:512-518.
40. Kacinik N.A., Chiarello C. Understanding metaphors: Is the right hemisphere uniquely involved?. Brain and Language 2007, 100:188-207.
41. Kircher T.T.J., Leube D.T., Erb M., Grodd W., Rapp A.M. Neural correlates of metaphor processing in schizophrenia. Neuroimage 2007, 34:281-289.
42. Knecht S., Dräger B., Deppe M., Bobe L., Lohmann H., Flöel A., et al. Handedness and hemispheric language dominance in healthy humans. Brain 2000, 123:2512-2518.
43. Koivisto M. Categorical priming in the cerebral hemispheres: Automatic in the left hemisphere, postlexical in the right hemisphere?. Neuropsychologia 1998, 36:661-668.
44. Lakoff G., Johnson M. Metaphors we live by 1980, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
45. Langdon R., Coltheart M., Ward P.B., Catts S.V. Disturbed communication in schizophrenia: The role of poor pragmatics and poor mind-reading. Psychological Medicine 2002, 32:1273-1284.
46. Lee S.S., Dapretto M. Metaphorical vs. literal word meanings: fMRI evidence against a selective role of the right hemisphere. Neuroimage 2006, 29:536-544.
47. Mashal N., Faust M., Hendler T. The role of the right hemisphere in processing nonsalient metaphorical meanings: Application of principal components analysis to fMRI data. Neuropsychologia 2005, 43:2084-2100.
48. Mashal N., Faust M., Hendler H., Jung-Beeman M. An fMRI investigation of the neural correlates underlying the processing of novel metaphoric expressions. Brain and Language 2007, 100:115-126.
49. Mashal N., Faust M. Right hemisphere sensitivity to novel metaphoric relations: Application of the signal detection theory. Brain and Language 2008, 104:103-112.
50. Mashal, N., Faust, M., Hendler, T., & Jung-Beeman, M. (2008). Hemispheric differences in processing the literal interpretation of idioms: Converging evidence from behavioral and fMRI studies. Cortex 44, (7), 848-860. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2007.04.004.
51. Mashal N., Faust M., Hendler T., Jung-Beeman M. An fMRI study of processing novel metaphoric sentences laterality: Asymmetries of body. Brain and Cognition 2009, 14:30-54.
52. McDonald S., Pearce S. Clinical insights into pragmatic theory: Frontal lobe deficits and sarcasm. Brain and Language 1996, 53:81-104.
53. Papagno C., Oliveri M., Romero L. Neural correlates of idiom comprehension. Cortex 2002, 38:895-898.
54. Phan K.L., Taylor S.F., Welsh R.C., Ho S.H., Britton J.C., Liberzon I. Neural correlates of individual ratings of emotional salience: A trial-related fMRI study. Neuroimage 2004, 21(2):768-780.
55. Pobric G., Mashal N., Faust M., Lavidor M. The role of the right cerebral hemisphere in processing novel metaphoric expressions: A transcranial magnetic stimulation study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 2008, 20:170-181.
56. Prat C.S., Mason R.A., Just M.A. An fMRI investigation of analogical mapping in metaphor comprehension: The influence of context and individual cognitive capacities on processing demands. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition 2012, 38(2):282-294.
57. Proverbio A.M., Crotti N., Zani A., Adorni R. The role of left and right hemisphere in the comprehension of idiomatic language: An electrical neuroimaging study. BMC Neuroscience 2009, 10:116-500. 10.1186/1471-2202-10-116.
58. Pynte J., Besson M., Robichon F.H., Poli J. The time-course of metaphor comprehension: An event-related potential study. Brain and Language 1996, 55:293-316.
59. Radua J., Mataix-Cols D. Voxel-wise meta-analysis of grey matter changes in obsessive-compulsive disorder. British Journal of Psychiatry 2009, 195:393-402.
60. Radua J., van den Heuvel O.A., Surguladze S., Mataix-Cols D. Meta-analytical comparison of voxel-based morphometry studies in obsessive compulsive disorder vs. other anxiety disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry 2010, 67:701-711.
61. Radua, J., Mataix-Cols, D., Phillips, M. L., El-Hage, W., Kronhaus, D. M., Cardoner, N., et al. A new meta-analytic method for neuroimaging studies that combines reported peak coordinates and statistical parametric maps. European Psychiatry, , in press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eurpsy.2011.04.001.
62. Rapp A.M., Leube D.T., Erb M., Grodd W., Kircher T.T. Neural correlates of metaphor processing. Brain Research 2004, 20:395-402.
63. Rapp A.M., Leube D.T., Erb M., Grodd W., Kircher T.T. Laterality in metaphor processing: Lack of evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging for the right hemisphere theory. Brain and Language 2007, 100:142-149.
64. Rapp A.M., Mutschler D.E., Wild B., Erb M., Lengsfeld I., Saur R., et al. Neural correlates of irony comprehension: The role of schizotypal personality traits. Brain and Language 2010, 113:1-12.
65. Rapp A.M., Wild B. Nonliteral language in Alzheimer dementia: A review. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society 2011, 17:207-218.
66. Romero L.J., Tettamenti M., Cappa S.F., Papagno C. Idiom comprehension: A prefrontal task?. Cerebral Cortex 2008, 18:162-170.
67. Rota G., Sitaram R., Veit R., Erb M., Weiskopf N., Dogil G., et al. Self-regulation of regional cortical activity using real-time fMRI: The right inferior frontal gyrus and linguistic processing. Human Brain Mapping 2009, 30:1605-1614.
68. Sander D., Grafman J., Zalla T. The human amygdala: An evolved system for relevance detection. Reviews in the Neuroscience 2003, 14(4):303-316.
69. Schmidt G.L., DeBuse C.J., Seger C.A. Right hemisphere metaphor processing? Characterizing the lateralization of semantic processes. Brain and Language 2007, 100:127-141.
70. Schmidt G.L., Seger C.A. Neural correlates of metaphor processing: The roles of figurativeness, familiarity and difficulty. Brain and Cognition 2009, 71:375-386.
71. Schmidt G.L., Kranjec A., Cardillo E.R., Chatterjee A. Beyond laterality: A critical assessment of research in the neural basis of metaphor. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society 2009, 16:1-5.
72. Searle J. Expression and meaning 1979, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.
73. Shamay-Tsoory S.G., Tomer R., Ahron-Peretz J. The neuroanatomical basis of understanding sarcasm and its relationship to social cognition. Neuropsychology 2005, 19:288-300.
74. Shaywitz B.A., Shaywitz S.E., Pugh K.R., Constable R.T., Skudlarski P., Fulbright R.K., et al. Sex differences in the functional organization of the brain for language. Nature 1995, 373:607-609.
75. Shibata M., Abe J., Terao A., Miyamoto T. Neural mechanisms involved in the comprehension of metaphoric and literal sentences: An fMRI study. Brain Research 2007, 1166:92-102.
76. Shibata M., Toyomura A., Itoh H., Abe J. Neural substrates of irony comprehension: A functional MRI study. Brain Research 2010, 1308:114-123.
77. Shibata H., Inui T., Ogawa K. Understanding interpersonal action coordination: An fMRI study. Experimental Brain Research 2011, 211:569-579.
78. Sotillo M., Carretié L., Hinojosa J.A., Tapia M., Mercado F., López-Martín S., et al. Neural activity associated with metaphor comprehension: Spatial analysis. Neuroscientific Letters 2005, 373:5-9.
79. Sperber D., Wilson D. Relevance: Communication and cognition 1995, Blackwell, Oxford.
80. Sperber D., Wilson D. Pragmatics, modularity and mindreading. Mind and Language 2002, 17:3-23.
81. Sponheim S.R., Surerus-Johnson C., Leskela J., Diep M.E. Proverb interpretation in schizophrenia: The significance of symptomatology and cognitive processes. Schizophrenia Research 2003, 65:117-123.
82. Stringaris A.K., Medford N., Giora R., Giampietro V., Brammer M.J., David A.S. How metaphors influence semantic relatedness judgments: The role of the right frontal cortex. Neuroimage 2006, 33:784-793.
83. Stringaris A.K., Medford N., Giora R., Giampietro V., Brammer M.J., David A.S. Deriving meaning: Distinct neural mechanism for metaphoric, literal, and non-meaningful sentences. Brain and Language 2007, 100:150-162.
84. Swinney D.A., Cutler A. The access and processing of idiomatic expressions. Journal of Verbal and Learning Behaviour 1979, 18:523-534.
85. Talairach J., Tournoux P. Co-planar stereotaxic atlas of the human brain 1988, Thieme Medical, New York.
86. Thoma P., Daum I. Neurocognitive mechanisms of figurative language processing-Evidence from clinical dysfunctions. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 2006, 30:1182-1205.
87. Uchiyama H.T., Seki A., Kageyama H., Saito D.N., Koeda T., Ohno K., et al. Neural substrates of sarcasm: A functional magnetic-resonance imaging study. Brain Research 2006, 1124:100-110.
88. Uchiyama H.T., Saito D.N., Tanabe H.C., Harada T., Seki A., Ohno K., et al. Distinction between the literal and intended meanings of sentences: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of metaphor and sarcasm. Cortex 2012, 48(5):563-583.
89. Van Lancker D.R., Kempler D. Comprehension of familiar phrases by left- but not by right-hemisphere damaged patients. Brain and Language 1987, 32:265-277.
90. Vigneau M., Beaucousin V., Hervé P.-Y., Jobard G., Petit L., Crivello F., et al. What is right-hemisphere contribution to phonological, lexico-semantic., and sentence processing? Insights from a meta-analysis. Neuroimage 2011, 54:577-593.
91. Wakusawa K., Sugiura M., Sassa Y., Jeong H., Horie K., Sato S., et al. Comprehension of implicit meanings in social situations involving irony: A functional MRI study. Neuroimage 2007, 37:1417-1426.
92. Wang A.T., Lee S.S., Sigman M., Dapretto M. Neural basis of irony comprehension in children with autism: The role of prosody and context. Brain 2006, 129:932-943.
93. Winner E., Gardner H. The comprehension of metaphor in brain-damaged patients. Brain 1977, 100:717-729.
94. Yang F.G., Fuller J., Khodaparest N., Krawczyk D.C. Figurative language processing after traumatic brain injury in adults: A preliminary study. Neuropsychologia 2010, 48:1923-1929.
95. Zempleni M.-Z., Haverkort M., Renken R., Stowe L.A. Evidence for bilateral involvement in idiom comprehension: An fMRI study. Neuroimage 2007, 34:1280-1291.
96. Zempleni M.-Z., Renken R., Hoeks J.C., Hoogduin J.M., Stowe L.A. Semantic ambiguity processing in sentence context: Evidence from event-related fMRI. Neuroimage 2007, 34:1270-1279.
97. Zhu Z., Zhang J.X., Wang S., Xiao Z., Huang J., Chen H.C. Involvement of left inferior frontal gyrus in sentence-level semantic integration. Neuroimage 2009, 47(2):756-763.