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This study examined whether performance on measures of proverb interpretation is influenced by examinees' familiarity with the proverbs to be interpreted. Subjects used a seven-point Likert scale to indicate the extent to which they were familiar with the 12 proverbs included in a standardized proverbs test. The resulting scores were correlated with the scores the subjects obtained when they interpreted the proverbs. The sample included 103 college students. The results indicated that a proverb familiarity-interpretation relationship did emerge for five (or 40%) of the proverbs. Also, subjects' average familiarity score for those five proverbs was higher than their average familiarity score for the other (seven) proverbs. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for clinical practice and suggestions are made regarding ways to offset the influence of proverb familiarity on proverb interpretation.
Cunningham et al. (Mon,) studied this question.