Factors that influence metaphor comprehension skills in adulthood

Abstract

We investigated differences between older and younger adults in interpreting metaphors describing emotions (e.g., “Joe was crashing thunder,” meaning that he was angry). Subjects selected emotional interpretations and explained the basis for their selection for 12 metaphors. Twenty-four older and 24 younger adults read metaphors that described emotions. The group performed identically when selecting interpretations, but older adults were more likely to make up stories about the person named in the metaphor to explain the metaphor than were younger adults, who focused on attributes of the metaphoric terms. These findings suggest that observed adult age differences in metaphor comprehension reflect methodological factors and may reflect cognitive style differences.