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Hyperbole, Homunculi, and

Hindsight Bias: An Alternative

Evaluation of Conceptual

Metaphor TheoryMatthew S. McGlone

a

aDepartment of Communication Studies, University

of Texas at Austin

Accepted author version posted online: 11 Aug

2011.Version of record first published: 27 Oct 2011.

To cite this article: Matthew S. McGlone (2011): Hyperbole, Homunculi, and Hindsight

Bias: An Alternative Evaluation of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Discourse Processes,

48:8, 563-574

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2011.606104

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Discourse Processes, 48:563574, 2011

Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 0163-853X print/1532-6950 online

DOI: 10.1080/0163853X.2011.606104

Hyperbole, Homunculi, and HindsightBias: An Alternative Evaluation of

Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Matthew S. McGlone

Department of Communication Studies

University of Texas at Austin

To its credit, conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) has drawn significant attention

to the question of what figurative language can tell us about human concepts.

However, the answers CMT theorists have offered are typically unsubstantiated

by the empirical evidence, and occasionally unfalsifiable. This reply to RaymondW. Gibbs Jr.s positive evaluation of the theory offers an alternative assessment

that is more critical of its shortcomings. This critique summarizes four basic

problems with CMT: The theory (a) is attributionally ambiguous about the locus of

metaphoric motivation, (b) commits a form of the infamous homunculus problem

in philosophy of mind, (c) employs circular reasoning to formulate hypotheses and

interpret linguistic evidence, and (d) is not parsimonious. All of these problems are

evident in Gibbss piece, and thereby undermine his defense of CMTs explanatory

value.

In his article in this issue, Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. defends conceptual metaphor

theory (CMT) from its critics. Although several psychologists, philosophers, and

linguists have been critical of CMT over the years, Gibbs chiefly focuses on my

2007 critique (see McGlone, 2007). It comes as no surprise that I disagree with

his rebuttal; however, I do sympathize with two aspects of his cause. First, I share

his conviction that we can learn something about human concepts from figura-

tive languagea term I use in this article to exclusively refer to conventional

and novel metaphoric expressions (as opposed to irony, periphrasis, and other

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Matthew S. McGlone, Department

of Communication Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station A1105, Austin, TX

78712, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

563

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564 MCGLONE

non-metaphoric tropes). However, whereas I take these expressions as reflecting

relational similarities and associations between concepts, Gibbs interprets them

as evidence that the concepts themselves are metaphorically structured. In whatfollows, I make the case for why theoretical parsimony is on my side in this

dispute. Second, I agree that the most promising avenue for testing CMTs tenets

is the study of embodiment phenomena. In particular, recent work investigating

spatiotemporal reasoning and correspondences between vertical position and

affect take the crucial third step of CMT research (i.e., testing hypothesized

metaphoric correspondences in nonlinguistic behavior) I pleaded for in my

critique (see McGlone, 2007). Moreover, I myself have recently demonstrated a

correspondence between temporal agency and event-related affect that comports

with some embodiment claims (McGlone & Pfiester, 2009). That said, I stilldo not think any of these findings force the conclusion that happiness, time, or

other abstract topics are conceptually subsumed by more concrete topics like

space (more about this later), but they do, nonetheless, suggest some strong and

interesting associations between concepts.

My disagreements with Gibbs (this issue) and other CMT proponents boil

down to four basic problems. The theory (a) is attributionally ambiguous about

the locus of metaphoric motivation, (b) commits a form of the infamous ho-

munculus problem in philosophy of mind, (c) employs circular reasoning to

formulate hypotheses and interpret linguistic evidence, and (d) is not parsimo-nious. All of these problems are evident in Gibbss piece, and thereby undermine

his defense of CMTs explanatory value. Each problem is described in detail in

the following.

ATTRIBUTIONAL AMBIGUITY

Gibbs (this issue) begins his piece with an analysis of former President Bushs

use of the phrase stay the course during the 2006 Congressional elections. Inthis analysis, Gibbs poses a question about the phrase that sets the stage for the

theoretical claims that follow:

Was Bushs use of the phrase stay the course motivated by a more general

underlying metaphorical concept, such as Progress toward a goal is a journey,

or did he simply use this clichd expression because it conventionally means not

changing plans without any underlying metaphorical conception about the U.S.

strategy for the Iraq war? (p. 530)

Although Gibbs does not directly answer the question he poses, it is fair to

say from what follows that he favors the former account (usage was motivated

by the progressjourney metaphor) over the latter (usage was motivated by its

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HYPERBOLE, HOMUNCULI, AND HINDSIGHT BIAS 565

conventional not changing plans meaning); but, on what grounds? The CMT

account is highly suspect here, even if we stipulate that by Bushs use he

really means Bushs speechwriters use of the phrase. To whom can we confi-dently attribute the motivation (conscious or unconscious) to invoke a conceptual

metaphor? It is plausible that the sailors who introduced this nautical navigation

phrase (according to my idiom dictionary; Makkai, Boatner, & Gates, 2003)

into general usage broadly contemplated the potential correspondences between

progress and journeysgoal as destination, goal pursuers as navigators, plans as

vessels, and so forth. Does any and every use of (or encounter with) the phrase

entail contemplation of this set of correspondences? That is a key question for

CMT proponents to answer because if the answer is no, then it is not clear what

is especially conceptual about understanding this figurative expression anymore than other words or phrases, all of which unremarkably refer to concepts.

Gibbs would have us believe that (a) the phrases composition and (b) our ability

to appreciate his analysis of its metaphorical implications are evidence that the

answer is yes. However, metaphor comprehension and appreciation are distinct,

process-dissociated activities (Gerrig & Healy, 1983), with the former relying

on a truncated representational structure far simpler than the latter. Near the end

of his piece, Gibbs concedes that, in fact, neither the previous question nor other

key questions about figurative language comprehension have been addressed by

CMT research:

First, does one initially access the complete conceptual metaphor (e.g., Love

relationships are journeys) from memory and then apply it to infer the metaphoric

meaning of an expression (e.g., Our marriage is a roller-coaster ride from hell)?

Second, if the conceptual metaphor is accessed prior to interpretation of expression,

does it come with a package of detailed meaning entailments or correspondences

that are also inferred as part of ones understanding of what the expression means?;

or, must people compute source-to-target domain mappings online to determine

which entailments of the conceptual metaphor are applied to the meaning of

utterance? Finally, do conceptual metaphors arise as products of understanding andare, therefore, not necessary to create an initial understanding of a metaphorical

expression? There are, as of yet, no empirical studies that provide exact answers

to these questions [italics added]. (Gibbs, this issue, p. 550)

I find this concession to be as startling as it is straightforward. Over 30 years

after CMTs initial formulation, there are, as yet, no studies that directly demon-

strate the degree to which figurative language is mediated by conceptual meta-

phors. Should there be those studies by now? Given the sheer volume of ex-

tant CMT-motivated research Gibbs (this issue) reviews, it is surprising andunfortunate that virtually none of it has addressed the fundamental questions

he raises in the previous passage. Moreover, the absence of this theoretically

essential research would seem to undermine his ultimate conclusion that CMT

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566 MCGLONE

has great explanatory power, and must be considered to be foundational for

any comprehensive theory of metaphor (p. 556). Until there is a substantial

body of empirical evidence demonstrating conceptual metaphoric mediation offigurative language comprehension, claims about the theorys foundational

status are little more than hyperbole.

CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS AS HOMUNCULI

The homunculus problem first received significant attention in debates about

how the mind processes imagery (Gregory, 1990). Theorists who attempted to

explain imagery by positing special image-processing modules were, in effect,saying that a little man resides in the mind who identifies incoming images

as people, dogs, flowers, cars, and so on. The problem with such theoretical

constructs is that they are not really explanations; they are just reformulations

of the original problem (i.e., If the homunculus processes imagery, how exactly

is he doing the work?). Analogously, CMT explains the problem of metaphor

comprehension by positing metaphors in our minds that tell us how to interpret

metaphors we encounter in discourse, and also how to use them appropriately

ourselves. The only explanatory primitives that the theory offers are the hypoth-

esized sourcetarget correspondences (which merely restate metaphor meaningin an analogical formalism) and something called the invariance hypothesis,

according to which metaphorical mappings preserve the cognitive topology

(that is, the image-schematic structure) of the source domain (Lakoff, 1990,

p. 54; also cited by Gibbs, this issue, p. 536).

No matter how many times I reread and ponder Lakoffs (1990) original for-

mulation of the invariance hypothesis or subsequent treatments by his adherents,

I am always struck by the contrast between how little it really says and how

much it is supposed to explain. All it really says is that figurative expressions

will always cohere with ones perceptual experience of the source concept uponwhich the figuration is based. Thus, a building metaphor about theories will

always allude to source attributes consistent with my perceptual schema for

buildings (foundation, doors, etc.), and never to attributes that are not part of

my building schema (flavor, hair, etc.). Whatever explanatory value there is to

this tenet would seem to vanish if we stipulate that the speaker in question is not

suffering from aphasia, schizophrenia, or synaesthesia. Morever, as Gibbs (this

issue) concedes, the invariance hypothesis actually fails to explain why certain

image-schematic source attributes are routinely exploited in figurative language

(foundation, doors, etc.) while other equally schematic attributes (staircases,elevators, etc.) are ignored. The kluge he proposes as a remedy (based on work

by Grady, 1997, 1999) is a set of low-level, primary conceptual metaphors that

constrain which attributes of complex, higher-level conceptual metaphors get

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expressed (Gibbs, this issue, pp. 536537). This move is as unsatisfying as it is

unparsimonious, akin to positing handler homunculi whose job it is to keep the

head homunculus on message.1

Ultimately, the claim that verbal metaphors aremotivated by and understood by means of mental metaphors (low or high level,

primary or complex, abstract or embodied, etc.) does not explain metaphor so

much as it explains it away. That is an untenable theoretical position to defend.

CIRCULAR REASONING

CMT theorists treat metaphoric expressions in discourse as both the predictor

of conceptual metaphor representational structures and as the predicted outcomeof these structures. I and others (e.g., Murphy, 1996) have criticized this and

other vestiges of circular reasoning over the years, but CMT theorists have

largely ignored these concerns.2 Question-begging logic is on display in several

passages of Gibbss (this issue) piece:

CMT primarily relates to certain kinds of metaphor (i.e., those with implicit target

domains, such as in I dont see the main point of that paper, which is motivated

by Knowing is seeing), but not necessarily others (i.e., so-called resemblance

metaphors where the source and target domains are explicitly stated, as in My

job is a jail). (pp. 530531)

1An even worse kluge was proposed by Turner (1990). Cognizant of the invariance hypothesis

failure to distinguish between image-schematic source properties that map to the target domain

and others that do not, he amended the processing directive implied by the hypothesis as follows:

In metaphoric mapping, for those components of the source and target domains determined to be

involved in the mapping [italics added], preserve the image-schematic structure of the target, and

import as much image-schematic structure from the source as is consistent with that preservation

(p. 254). In other words, attributes of the source domain that are relevant to the conceptual metaphor

are preserved, and attributes that are not relevant are not preserved. This claim can be interpreted as

either explicit (and egregious) post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning or an implicit claim that somemetaphoric homunculus is deciding a priori which source attributes are relevant to the target domain

and which are not. Neither interpretation suggests that Turners amendment adds any explanatory

precision to the invariance hypothesis.2Although most CMT theorists have ignored criticisms of their circular reasoning, Kertesz and

Rakosi (2009) recently took the novel approach of arguing that such criticisms are predicated on

defective notions of circularity, and instead characterized the logic of CMT as cyclic, not circular.

It is notable that their refutation was predicated on what they acknowledged is a novel account

of fallacies (p. 703), which makes its debut in their article. This novel account is called for, they

argued, because extant metatheoretical frameworks (epistemology, systemics, etc.) are inadequate

for evaluating cognitive linguistic theory. I am not aware of how their claims have been received in

philosophical circles. However, the notion of circularity I have addressed in my critiques corresponds

to the formulation articulated in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Honderich, 1995): A

sequence of reasoning is circular if one of the premises depends on, or is even equivalent to,

the conclusion (p. 135).

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568 MCGLONE

In this passage, Gibbs treats the existence of conceptual metaphors as simply a

given, not a theory or a hypothesis. However, saying that some verbal metaphors

have implicit source domains is begging the question, especially in lightof his aforementioned concession that psycholinguistic research is still moot

on conceptual metaphors alleged role in comprehension. We do not actually

know whether verbal metaphors have implicit source domains, and the extent to

which they are thought to depend on conceptual metaphors reflects no empirical

evidence, just the intuitions of CMT advocates.

Furthermore, as Keysar and Bly (1995) demonstrated, ones intuitions about

the relation between a figurative expressions meaning and its alleged conceptual

structure are susceptible to hindsight bias (Fischoff, 2007; Fischoff & Beyth,

1975). Gibbs (this issue) attempts to write off their criticisms by claiming thatthe idioms used in their studies are based on metonymy, not metaphor. I do

not understand why the idioms they used (e.g., The goose hangs high) are

metonymies (would Up is good apply?) but stay the course is metaphorical,

but no matter; the point of Keysar and Blys piece does not reside in the

materials they used, but in the reasoning process their participants exemplified.

After their participants learned fabricated meanings for idioms and formulated

theories about why they had those meanings, they resisted consideration of

other meanings, even when these meanings were historically correct. CMT

theorists reliance on their intuitions about idiom meanings opens them up tothe same bias. An objective evaluation of a figurative expressions metaphorical

(or metonymic, for that matter) motivation requires evidence independent from

our intuitions. This proviso applies with equal force to linguistic analyses of

conceptual metaphors and to most of the psycholinguistic studies Gibbs and his

colleagues have conducted.

PROBLEMS WITH PARSIMONY

Several years ago, Jennifer Harding and I conducted studies of temporal lan-

guage comprehension that, prima facie, yielded results consistent with the CMT

framework (see McGlone & Harding, 1998). Gibbs (this issue) accurately sum-

marizes our conclusions, but gets some of the details wrong about our findings.

Specifically, in Experiment 2, we found that people interpreted an ambiguous

spatiotemporal proposition (The meeting originally scheduled for next Wednes-

day has been moved forward two days) in a manner perspectivally consistent

with unambiguous propositions preceding it. When preceded by moving-event

expressions (e.g., The deadline passed two days ago), people were inclined toinfer that the meeting had been rescheduled for Monday (consistent with a past-

bound direction of temporal movement); when preceded by moving-observer

expressions (We passed the deadline two days ago), they were more likely

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to infer that meeting had been moved to Friday (consistent with future-bound

temporal motion).

Although these findings are consistent with the CMT claim that times con-ceptual structure is predicated on space, they do not force this claim. Instead,

we opted to explain the finding in terms of Ray Jackendoffs (1983; see also

Jackendoff & Aaron, 1991) thematic relations hypothesis, according to which

time and space have independent, but thematically parallel, structures. This

explanation, we reasoned, is the more parsimonious one given our findings.

Gibbs (this issue) takes issue with our reasoning in the following passage:

The difficulty with this explanation, however, is that time and space have a

directional relation such that time is understood in terms of space, but space is not

understood in terms of time. Thus, the directional relation between time and space

suggests that time is metaphorically understood (e.g., Time is motion), which is

exactly the claim of CMT (Gibbs, 1994). One can argue, then, that the abstract

similarity position is untenable as an account of verbal metaphor understanding,

with the McGlone and Harding (1998) data being consistent with the tenets of

CMT. (p. 548)

This argument does not hold up to Occams Razor for at least two rea-

sons. First, why are Gibbs and other CMT theorists so convinced that space

cannot be understood in terms of time? Psychologists like Fraisse (1963) andFriedman (1990) reported research in which people predicate reasoning about

spatial distance on temporal duration (e.g., Austin is 90 minutes north of San

Antonio). Notably, these researchers did not draw the conclusion that space is

conceptually structured by time from their findings. Second, even if the empirical

evidence did unequivocally point to a unidirectional influence of spatial relations

on temporal ones (as suggested by Casasanto & Boroditsky, 2008), that would

not force the conclusion that the time concept is structured by the space concept.

Numerous researchers have demonstrated over the years that verbal metaphors

are often intrinsically directional without going the extra step of claiming thatthe directionality demonstrates that the topic concept is conceptually scaffolded

on the vehicle concept (Glucksberg, McGlone, & Manfredi, 1997; McGlone &

Manfredi, 2001; Miller, 1993; Ortony, 1979; Verbrugge & McCarrell, 1978).

Thus, An insult is a razor is more apt and meaningful than A razor is an

insult, but that in and of itself is not evidence that the conceptual structure of

insults is predicated on razor knowledge.

Parsimony problems also call into question the conclusions Gibbs (this issue)

draws from Thibodeau and Durgins (2008) replication, extension, and critique

of online metaphor comprehension studies by Keysar, Shen, Glucksberg, andHorton (2000). In their studies, Keysar et al. found that when target novel

figurative expressions were encountered after others that ostensibly invoke the

same conventional metaphor, they were read no faster than when preceded

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by semantically equivalent literal expressions; in contrast, when novel targets

were encountered after related novel expressions, reading times were reduced.

Based on these results, Keysar et al. concluded that conventional metaphorsare dead (i.e., not active in comprehension), and that only novel metaphors

prompt readers to compute sourcedomain conceptual mappings. Thibodeau and

Durgin took issue with these conclusions because of problems they detected in

the stimulus materialsspecifically, the aptness and conventionality of certain

target expressions. Using new stimulus materials that eliminated these problems,

they found comprehension facilitation for novel targets in novel and conventional

contexts. Gibbs interprets these findings as a refutation of Keysar et al.s results

and negative conclusions about CMT (p. 548).

Thibodeau and Durgin (2008) would surely be more sympathetic to Gibbss(this issue) stance than to mine, but the conclusions they drew from their results

differ from his in two important respects. First, they acknowledged that in

revising Keysar et al.s (2000) problematic materials, they committed a method-

ological oversight of their ownto wit, they did not test for the possibility that

the facilitation effect obtained with their new materials could be attributed to

lexical priming. Thus, it is possible that literal associations between words in the

context cues (e.g., I had to take a moment to let off steam) and the novel target

expressions (Otherwise, my boiler would burst) facilitated comprehension

of the latter, rather than activation of metaphoric angerheat mappings. Thepsycholinguistic literature is replete with demonstrations of lexical priming

effects in literal text comprehension (Graesser & Bower, 1990; McKoon &

Ratcliff, 1986; Potts, Keenan, & Golding, 1988; see also Kreuz & Graesser,

1991), so it is premature to infer that any metaphoric mediation occurred here

without ruling out this explanation. Moreover, the facilitation effects Thibodeau

and Durgin reported are quite modest (100150 ms of a mean reading time of

approximately 2,000 ms)more comparable in magnitude to lexical priming

effects (e.g., Graesser & Bower, 1990) than to a processing advantage induced

by the prior activation of a mental model (e.g., Glenberg, Meyer, & Lindem,1987).

Second, although Gibbs (this issue) infers that the facilitation effects are

conceptually mediated, Thibodeau and Durgin (2008) did not presume that their

findings shed any light on the mechanism by which facilitation occurred. Their

chief interest was the communicative advantage conferred when metaphors are

generative, regardless of whether the locus of generativity resides at the level

of lexical association or abstract conceptual mappings. This stance is reflected

in their acknowledgment that lexical priming could have produced the effects

Thibodeau and Durgin reported:

Because our theory of communicative facilitation is neutral with respect to the

mechanism by which related metaphors facilitate each other, we accept that priming

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could play an important role in this process, but emphasize that the functional

outcome of such priming probably corresponds closely to structure mapping.

(p. 532)

In other words, Thibodeau and Durgin were tipping their hats to parsimony.

Their findings may be consistent with CMT tenets, but they are also consistent

with the simpler explanation lexical priming offers. Unless evidence favoring the

more complex account is obtained, science dictates that the simpler one should

be embraced. In this respect, Thibodeau and Durgins conclusions align with

McGlone and Hardings (1998) agnosticism regarding conceptual metaphors

role in temporal language comprehension. Why Gibbs scolded us for this stance,

but overlooked Thibodeau and Durgins theoretical neutrality, is unclear.As I mentioned at the outset, Gibbs (this issue) and I are in agreement that

several recent studies of embodiment phenomena appear to have taken the crucial

third step in research (i.e., testing hypothesized metaphoric correspondences

in nonlinguistic behavior) I called for in my 2007 critique (Casasanto, 2009;

Casasanto & Boroditsky, 2008; Casasanto & Djikstra, 2010; Meier & Robinson,

2004; Meier, Robinson, & Clore, 2004; Meier, Robinson, Crawford, & Ahlvers,

2007; Williams & Bargh, 2008a, 2008b). Most of these studies had not been

published before my piece was accepted for publication in 2004, else I would

have included them in my review. I applaud the authors ingenuity in creatingnovel experimental paradigms for measuring spatial and motoric behaviors (e.g.,

memory for vertical position) to test hypotheses about the spatial entailments of

hypothesized conceptual metaphors (e.g., Good is up and Bad is down). All

of these findings are thought-provoking in and of themselves, and some hold

important implications for the study of audition, vision, kinesiology, religious

thought, social interaction, and other seemingly disparate research areas.

However, interpreting these findings as evidence for CMT is presumptuous

if parsimony is to prevail. The problem here is that all of the aforementioned

studies test hypotheses about conceptual metaphors that link a unidimensionalsource domain, such as warmth, with a unidimensional target domain, such

as affection (Affection is warmth, Better is bigger and Worse is smaller,

Good is up and Bad is down, God is up and The Devil is down, Positive

is high pitch and Negative is low pitch, Power is up and Weakness is

down, and The future is ahead and The past is behind). In contrast, the

metaphors CMT theorists have focused most of their attention on entail multiple

mappings between domains (e.g., Love is a journey entails mappings between

relationships and vehicles, lovers and travelers, speed and excitement, etc.). In

contrast to these multiple-mapping metaphors, single-mapping metaphorsbear more than a passing resemblance to the one-shot mappings Gibbs (this

issue) denies conceptual metaphoric status to, ostensibly because they do not map

rich conceptual domains (p. 532). His point is well-takenthe invariance hy-

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572 MCGLONE

pothesis (Lakoff, 1990), rules for conceptual blending (Fauconnier & Turner,

2003), and other numerous CMT tenets do not apply in an obvious way to single-

mapping metaphors in which the domains involved are relatively impoverishedand the mappings between them are one-shot by necessity. Thus, it is question-

able whether third step research conducted with single-mapping metaphors

can be taken as evidence for CMTa theory formulated with multiple-mapping

metaphors in mind.

Another problem from the standpoint of parsimony is that a far simpler expla-

nation for dimensional single-mapping metaphors has been available for years.

In their highly influential work, The Measurement of Meaning, Osgood, Suci,

and Tannenbaum (1957) articulated a theory of metaphor specifically focused

on correspondences between dimensions such as affection and temperature,emotion and vertical position, and size and pitch. Their associative account

characterized metaphor as the parallel alignment of two or more dimensions

of experience, definable verbally by pairs of polar adjectives, with translations

occurring between equivalent portions of continua (p. 23). Osgood et al., like

Jackendoff (1983), assumed that the dimensions translated in a metaphor

(e.g., affection and temperature) are independently represented, and that relevant

figurative expressions (warm welcome, cool reception, etc.) reflect their

perceived alignment. Parsimony, of course, favors the proposal that makes fewer

assumptions. Thus, I conclude that Osgood et al.s associative alignment expla-nation is representationally rich enough to account for the aforementioned single-

mapping metaphor phenomena without positing the existence of a metaphoric

mental structure. Whether there are other nonlinguistic metaphor phenomena that

warrant the richer representational tenets of CMT remains an issue for future

research.

CONCLUSION

When CMT grew from a theory into a school of thought, I was initially intrigued;

but as I have watched it curdle into a cult of confirmation bias, I am deeply

dismayed. Strip away the lofty, mechanistic language and its core claim is this:

People use and understand metaphors in discourse because they have metaphors

in their heads. That is not a theory. It is just begging the question, akin to when

the physician in Molieres (1996/1666) famous play, Le Misanthrope, explained

that opium makes one sleepy because it has a virtus dormitivaLatin for a sleep

inducing quality. An evaluation of CMT must acknowledge its shortcomings

as well as its strengths. In my estimation, Gibbs (this issue) underestimated theformer and overestimated the latter. If he and other CMT proponents would like

to improve CMTs explanatory value, they would be well-advised to start by

addressing its noticeable absence of explanatory primitives that are conceptually

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simpler than the phenomena it presumes to explain. Next, they should conduct

basic research demonstrating that these primitives play a role in online figurative

language comprehension. Critically, the hypotheses they test must not invokemetaphor-interpreting homunculi, and their conclusions must be interpreted

in a noncircular, parsimonious fashion. Unless and until these critical research

reforms are implemented, CMT will remain a virtus dormitiva in the study of

discourse processes.

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