Describe feelings with taste metaphors

Taste metaphors awaken more emotions when reading

06/06/2014

It is often difficult to describe feelings with words and in many cases the actual feelings or impressions can hardly be conveyed. Here, the use of taste metaphors may help because they touch readers emotionally apparently much stronger than non-pictorial idioms, according to a recent study by women scientists of the Free University (FU) Berlin and Princeton University.

Study authors Francesca Citron and Adele Goldberg report in the journal „Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience“ (JoCN) that in their investigations, the subjects in the silent reading of taste metaphors had a much more pronounced response in the brain than in reading the literal paraphrases. The neuroscientist dr. Francesca Citron and the linguist Prof. dr. According to a report by the Free University of Berlin, Adele Goldberg has for the first time investigated imaging using imaging techniques, „how figurative language is handled in conjunction with taste.“

„Sweet compliments“ versus „Nice compliments“
In the context of their study, the scientists submitted the 26 participants in total „37 simple metaphorical sentences and their non-figurative equivalents“ in front. For example, they could do the sentences „She got a sweet compliment.“ or „She got a nice compliment.“ read. Only in one word did they differ and they became „adjusted in terms of length, frequency, pictoriality, emotional valence and emotional arousal“, reported the FU Berlin. While the subjects read the sentences, the researchers measured their brain activity. Subsequently, the different words were submitted to the study participants in isolation, to ensure that the flavor regions of the brain were also active in taste words.

Increased brain activity in taste metaphors
The researchers stated, „that in quietly reading metaphorical expressions, not only brain regions that are involved with tasting were activated“, but yourself „also increased activity in regions where emotions are processed.“ The amygdala and the anterior part of the hippocampus were more activated by the metaphorical sentences, Goldberg and Citron write „JONC“. Despite the content of the same statement, the sentences without corresponding metaphors did not produce comparable excitation patterns in the subjects' brains. „Metaphors may be more emotionally effective because they also evoke physical experiences“, explained Francesca Citron. This could be done even for conventional metaphors like „sweet“ For „kind“ or „hot“ For „sexy“ be valid. Further studies are intended to clarify this and, moreover, the researchers want to investigate in a next step, „how these metaphors are processed by speakers who have learned the studied language as a foreign language“, reported the FU Berlin. (Fp)