An EEG-based analysis on the hemisphere activation during literary metaphor comprehension

In order to investigate the comprehension process of novel metaphor in modern Chinese lyric poems (literary metaphor), this study was designed to compare the neural mechanisms and hemisphere activation in processing literary metaphor (LM) with metaphor in non-literary context (NM) and literal expression (LE). The Event-related potentials (ERPs) and source-localization algorithms (sLORETA) were applied in this study. Based on the ERPs results, significant differences were revealed in the N400 time window. The waveform of literary metaphor was significantly more negative than other conditions (NM and LE), suggesting more effort in retrieving conceptual knowledge. Furthermore, comparing source localization solutions revealed that both the left and right hemispheres were activated in processing literary and non-literary metaphors. Although the right hemisphere was reported to play a significant role in metaphor comprehension and presented stronger activation in processing literary metaphors during the N400 time window, no significant difference was indicated between the two hemispheres.