Metaphors enrich language; just think, would you rather listen to a singer with a “silky voice” or just a “pleasant voice”? In evoking the smooth feeling of silk, the phrase associates a physical texture with something that has none. Because of this, scientists have speculated for some time whether the ability to understand a metaphor is rooted in the sensory parts of the brain, rather than simply the cognitive portion. Now, researchers have evidence confirming this speculation, showing that a sensory region of the brain lights up when dealing with even the most common textural metaphors.
The parietal operculum is the part of the brain responsible for sensing texture through touch. Using fMRI, researchers from Emory University discovered that this region is activated when someone listens to a sentence containing a textural metaphor, but that it isn’t activated when listening to a similar sentence expressing the same intention minus the metaphor.
Metaphors are abstract treats for the conceptual mind, but they also engage ancient, sensory parts of our brains. No wonder we litter our literature, speech, and song with them.