A Facilitatory Effect of Perceptual Incongruity on Target-Source Matching in Pictorial Metaphors of Chinese Advertising: EEG Evidence

Using evoked response potentials, we investigated the implicit detection of incongruity during target-source matching in pictorial metaphors of Chinese advertising. Participants saw an image of a product (the target in a visual metaphorical relationship), and then made a same-different judgment in response to a second image (the source in a visual metaphorical relationship) which was (in)congruous to the first image in terms of shape and/or function. We collected behavioral (button-press reaction time and accuracy), and neural (N270, delta and theta band activity) measures. The time-frequency analysis showed faster processing of incongruous visual information. Moreover, shape and conceptual…