| Summary: | This study assessed the possibility that the processing of metaphoric alternative meanings of ambiguous words may be differentiated from the processing of their non-metaphoric alternative meanings. Two factors were studied in order to find a possible difference: the neural bases and the behavioral aspects of such processing. Thirty-five participants performed a priming task in which pairs of words were related by their dominant, metaphoric alternative or nonmetaphoric alternative meanings. Stimuli were presented according to a divided visual field paradigm. Analysis did not reveal any differences in hemispheric contributions, probably because of an insufficient stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). Analysis of the behavioral results showed a difference between ambiguous words with a metaphoric alternative meaning and those with a non-metaphoric alternative meaning: for the former, the different interpretations were accessed hierarchically, while for the latter, the different interpretations were accessed in parallel. This behavioral difference in the processing of metaphoric and non-metaphoric alternative meanings suggests that these two types of ambiguous words are processed differently.
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