When Dancers Are Butterflies: How the Brain Understands Metaphors

Abstract

When we speak, we often say things that are dierent from what we actually mean. For example, at a ballet, we might say that the dancers are butterflies. Dancers are not really butterflies, but this statement is not a lie; it is a metaphor. A metaphor is a figure of speech quite common in our everyday language and in books. In this article, we explain what metaphors are, why we use them, and what happens in our brains when we must understand a metaphor. Understanding metaphors requires a lot of brain work, which is why it is not always easy. Some people might find metaphors particularly diffcult to understand, for example, very young children and people who are autistic. At the end of the article, we suggest things that teachers and speech and language therapists can do to help those who have diffculty understanding metaphors.