Date of Graduation
5-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts in Psychology
Degree Level
Undergraduate
Department
Psychological Science
Advisor/Mentor
Levine, William
Committee Member
Kral, Timothy
Second Committee Member
Makhanova, Anastasia
Third Committee Member
Paul, Kathleen
Abstract
One of the most notable factors that influence sentence comprehension is the presence of metaphors (e.g., Inhoff, Lima, & Carroll, 1984). The metaphor interference effect (MIE) is a very interesting result of metaphor comprehension. It is a well-known linguistic effect (e.g., Al- Azary et al., 2021; Glucksberg et al, 1982) that can result in participants taking longer to determine that a metaphoric statement is false compared to other non-metaphoric literally false statements. The present study investigated the impact that vocabulary knowledge, working memory capacity, and memory load have on the metaphor interference effect. We predicted that each of these characteristics would have a significant impact on the metaphor interference effect. Thirty-eight undergraduate students completed a metaphor interference task with memory load manipulation, followed by a working memory capacity task, and then a vocabulary task. The results of our experiment did not show that vocabulary knowledge, working memory capacity, or memory load had an impact on the metaphor interference effect. Keywords: metaphor interference effect, working memory capacity, vocabulary, memory load
Keywords
metaphor interference effect; working memory capacity; vocabulary; memory load
Citation
Simpson, C. (2026). What Are the Roles of Vocabulary and Working Memory in Metaphor Comprehension?. Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/psycuht/90
