Lakoff and Johnson (1980) proposed that conceptual metaphors underlie thinking. Previous research demonstrated that whereas these conceptual metaphors may be available in long-term memory, they do not seem to be accessed in online comprehension tasks. Most of this research investigated structural metaphors (e.g., "argument is war"). The research reported here investigated orientational metaphors (e.g., "more is up"). The results are that texts that violate orientational metaphors are more difficult to comprehend than texts that are consistent with these metaphors. The results suggest that there are situations in which metaphors will be accessible during online comprehension.
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William Langston (2002) studied this question.
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