On the Proper Treatment of Noun-Noun Metaphor: A Critique of the Sapper Model

摘要: This paper responds to the claim of Veale, O’Donoghue and Keane (1995) that SME (Falkenhainer, Forbus & Gentner, 1989; Forbus, Ferguson 1994) performs poorly on noun-noun comparisons, such as A surgeon is like a butcher. Veale et al. argue comparisons involve “object-centered representations” do not contain higher-order relations, Sapper’s chaining expressions share entity arguments provides better model than for comparisons. They also literally will require longer lifetime universe align noun representations. We refute both their cognitive computational claims here, focusing (1) psychology metaphors; (2) how Sapper works; (3) SME’s actual performance. The metaphors al.’s object-centered representations inconsistent with psychological findings. People readily interpret in terms common relational structure; example, “Cigarettes are time bombs.” interpreted mean cause damage after quiescent period. Gentner Clement (1988) found adult ratings metaphor aptness positively correlated amount information interpretations (as independently judged) noncorrelated or negatively object-attribute information. Like humans, can produce attributional matches, but generally prefers former.