Can reading habits affect metaphor evaluation? Exploring key relations

Abstract This study investigates the relationship between literature and poetry reading frequency and participants’ ratings of metaphors on key features: quality, aptness, familiarity, and comprehensibility. Using a set of Serbian poetic metaphors, we explored two main questions: how reading habits correlate with metaphor feature ratings, and whether the type of reading material (i.e., literature vs poetry) influences sensitivity to these features. The sample consisted of 140 native Serbian-speaking students from varied academic disciplines. Participants rated metaphors based on reading frequency (literature and poetry) using a 7-point Likert scale. Analysis showed that frequent readers generally gave higher overall metaphor ratings than infrequent readers, with significant differences noted particularly in familiarity and comprehensibility. Specifically, familiarity ratings yielded the most substantial differences between infrequent and frequent readers, which can indicate the influence of reading experience on the perceived recognition and understanding of metaphors. Aptness and quality ratings showed no significant differences, which suggests that familiarity and comprehensibility are more sensitive to variations in reading habits.