Table 3.

Psycholinguistic properties of the metaphor and literal sentence stimuli

	Metaphor						Literal						Metaphor-Literal
	Nominal		Predicate				Nominal		Predicate
	Auditory	Motion	Auditory	Motion	F	p	Auditory	Motion	Auditory	Motion	F	p	t	p
Interpretabilit y (%)	.93 (.10)	.94 (.06)	.93 (.06)	.94 (.06)	0.05	0.99	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	0	0
Figurativeness (1–7)	5.64 (.47)	5.81 (.58)	5.80 (.70)	5.50 (1.00)	0.63	0.6	2.00 (.52)	2.11 (.59)	1.73 (.83)	1.64 (.77)	1.58	0.21	25.83	<.001
Frequency	69.73 (121.65)	69.13 (77.08)	59.73 (79.23)	51.27 (53.81)	0.15	0.93	91.73 (102.08)	46.47 (51.83)	102.80 (95.66)	79.60 (117.43)	0.99	0.41	1.19	0.24
Age of Acquisition	7.38 (1.63)	6.98 (1.15)	6.72 (1.32)	7.73 (1.55)	1.46	0.24	6.68 (1.24)	7.01 (1.13)	6.25 (1.22)	6.58 (1.63)	0.82	0.49	2.81	0.007
Concreteness (1–5)	3.61 (.35)	3.61 (.45)	3.86 (.35)	3.68 (.56)	1.12	0.35	3.76 (.37)	3.73 (.52)	3.84 (.50)	3.78 (.60)	0.14	0.94	1.34	0.19
Familiarity (1–7)	2.69 (.62)	3.04 (.54)	2.83 (.72)	2.76 (.51)	0.96	0.42	5.52 (.66)	5.44 (.62)	5.60 (1.15)	5.45 (1.15)	0.1	0.96	19.98	<.001
Naturalness (1–7)	3.15 (.76)	3.45 (.69)	3.00 (.73)	2.96 (.68)	1.47	0.23	6.05 (.49)	5.83 (.59)	5.63 (1.15)	5.59 (1.22)	0.81	0.49	18.22	<.001
Imageability (1–7)	3.55 (.84)	3.55 (.58)	3.19 (.71)	2.99 (.93)	1.95	0.13	5.64 (.55)	6.07 (.63)	5.72 (1.07)	5.88 (1.09)	0.73	0.54	18.18	<.001
No. of words	6.20 (.41)	6.27 (.46)	6.40 (.51)	6.27 (.46)	0.5	0.69	6.13 (.35)	6.20 (.41)	6.27 (.59)	6.47 (.74)	1.04	0.38	0.33	0.74
No. of content words	3.20 (.41)	3.27 (.46)	3.27 (.46)	3.33 (.49)	0.22	0.89	3.13 (.35)	3.20 (.41)	3.40 (.51)	3.40 (.51)	1.4	0.25	0.33	0.74