Abstract

If metaphor is to be viewed as a fundamental cognitive agency, as recent work suggests, what ramifications does this view have for a model of semantic memory? This paper argues that if various signature phenomena of metaphor are to be given adequate computational treatment, a parallel adaptive (learning) network model of memory is required. Such a model, the Sapper framework, is described; Sapper is a hybrid symbolic/ connectionist model which views the interpretation of novel metaphors as a process of connectionist bridgebuilding, which subsequently alters the activation dynamics between conceptual schemata.

Citations