Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The affective component of metaphor meaning is explored in this paper. Previous studies have extensively examined the role of metaphor conventionality (novel vs. conventional metaphors) in metaphor comprehension. However, less is known regarding whether metaphor familiarity relates to the affective component of metaphor. We address this issue in the case of happiness metaphors in Spanish. The objective of this paper is twofold. First, metaphorical expressions of happiness were identified and classified into conceptual metaphors using the Corpus del Espa–ol. Second, 60 participants rated 96 metaphorical expressions of happiness for valence intensity, familiarity, and imaginability. The rating results show that the three variables are highly correlated, such that more familiar and imaginable metaphors are associated with more extreme values of affective valence. However, subsequent regression analysis suggests that the effect of familiarity on valence may be mediated by imaginability. Results are discussed in light of embodied models of conceptual metaphor representation.