Conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) holds that most conceptual metaphors are processed unconsciously. However, whether multiple words can be integrated into a holistic metaphoric sentence without consciousness remains controversial in cognitive science and psychology. This study aims to investigate the role of consciousness in processing Chinese nominal metaphoric sentences ‘A是B’ (A is[like] B) with a psychophysical experimental paradigm referred to as breaking continuous flash suppression (b-CFS). We manipulated sentence types (metaphoric, literal and anomalous) and word forms (upright, inverted) in a two-staged experiment (CFS and non-CFS). No difference was found in the breakthrough times among all three types of sentences in the CFS stage, while literal sentences were detected more slowly than either metaphoric or anomalous sentences in the non-CFS stage. The results suggest that the integration of multiple words may not succeed without the participation of consciousness, let alone metaphoric processing. These findings may redefine ‘unconscious’ in CMT as ‘preconscious’ and support the indirect access view regarding how the metaphoric meaning is processed in the brain.

Consensus on the extent to which cross-linguistic differences affect event cognition is currently absent. This is partly because cognitive influences of language have rarely been examined within speakers of different languages in tasks that manipulate the level of visual processing. This study presents a novel combination of a high-level approach upregulating the involvement of language, namely self-paced sentence-video verification, and a low-level visual detection method without language use, namely breaking continuous flash suppression (b-CFS) (Yang et al., 2014). The results point to cross-linguistic effects on event cognition by revealing variations in visual processing patterns of manner and path by English versus Mandarin Chinese speakers. Language specificity was found on both levels of processing. An asymmetry in response speed across tasks highlights an important difference between facilitation of detecting contrasts when recruitment of verbal labels is automatic, versus facilitation of verifying correspondences when labels are overt.