{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,19]],"date-time":"2026-01-19T08:18:11Z","timestamp":1768810691153,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":36,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,1,5]],"date-time":"2021-01-05T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1609804800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["J. Intell."],"abstract":"<jats:p>The present research examined the varieties of poor metaphors to gain insight into the cognitive processes involved in generating creative ones. Drawing upon data from two published studies as well as a new sample, adults\u2019 open-ended responses to different metaphor prompts were categorized. Poor metaphors fell into two broad clusters. Non-metaphors\u2014responses that failed to meet the basic task requirements\u2014consisted of \u201cadjective slips\u201d (describing the topic adjectivally instead of figuratively), \u201cwayward attributes\u201d (attributing the wrong property to the topic), and \u201coff-topic idioms\u201d (describing the wrong topic). Bad metaphors\u2014real metaphors that were unanimously judged as uncreative\u2014consisted of \u201cexemplary exemplars\u201d (vehicles that lacked semantic distance and thus seemed trite) and \u201cretrieved clich\u00e9s\u201d (pulling a dead metaphor from memory). Overall, people higher in fluid intelligence (Gf) were more likely to generate a real metaphor, and their metaphor was less likely to be a bad one. People higher in Openness to Experience, in contrast, were more likely to generate real metaphors but not more or less likely to generate bad ones. Scraping the bottom of the response barrel suggests that creative metaphor production is a particularly complex form of creative thought.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/jintelligence9010002","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,1,5]],"date-time":"2021-01-05T11:51:39Z","timestamp":1609847499000},"page":"2","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":8,"title":["When Figurative Language Goes off the Rails and under the Bus: Fluid Intelligence, Openness to Experience, and the Production of Poor Metaphors"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"9","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4597-328X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Paul J.","family":"Silvia","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27402, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6114-5973","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Roger E.","family":"Beaty","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, 140 Moore Building, University Park, PA 16801, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,1,5]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"219","DOI":"10.1037\/0033-2909.121.2.219","article-title":"Intelligence, personality, and interests: Evidence for overlapping traits","volume":"121","author":"Ackerman","year":"1997","journal-title":"Psychological Bulletin"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"255","DOI":"10.3758\/s13421-012-0258-5","article-title":"Metaphorically speaking: Cognitive abilities and the production of figurative language","volume":"41","author":"Beaty","year":"2013","journal-title":"Memory and Cognition"},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"163","DOI":"10.1016\/j.bandc.2016.12.004","article-title":"Brain networks underlying novel metaphor production","volume":"111","author":"Beaty","year":"2017","journal-title":"Brain and Cognition"},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"125","DOI":"10.1016\/j.neuroimage.2013.11.021","article-title":"To create or to recall? 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