non-metaphorical controls (He knows that whisky is a strong intoxicant), they are of intermediate amplitude for literal sentences that require explicit mappings between objects and the domains in which they commonly occur (He used cough syrup as an intoxicant). N400 effects thus suggest quantitative rather than qualitative differences between literal and figurative language, with metaphors often taxing mapping and conceptual integration processes more than literal sentences. At the same time, however, some aspects of joke comprehension seem easier for the RH than LH, as inferred from N400 attenuations to probe words following one-line jokes.
