Putting our feelings and emotions into words is often a good thing.

For
example, verbalizing unpleasant negative emotions may reduce the
strength of the emotional response and thereby contribute to
psychological well-being.

We should perhaps be more cautious when it comes to putting more

subtle, “intuitive” feelings into words. A study by Ayumi
Yamadapublished in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2009
showed that when people are asked to verbalize reasons for why they
like or dislike a piece of art this may change their subjective preferences.

The experimental design was quite simple. Each participant was shown
two paintings by the artist Piet Mondrian. Some participants were then
asked to choose the one they liked the most, and some were asked to
choose the one they disliked the most. One of these paintings (a)
("Woods near Oele") was representational/figurative, and the other (b)
("New York City") was abstract/non-figurative.

(a)
(b)
There was only one catch: Before choosing a painting, participants in a
"verbalization" condition had to describe the reasons for why they either
liked or disliked each of the two paintings. The other participants were
not asked to priovide any reasons.

Yamada found that those participants who were asked to provide

reasons for liking the paintings before choosing the painting they liked
the most, more often preferred the representational painting. How can
this be explained? One interpretation is that it is easier to provide
reasons for liking a painting that contains many recognizable elements
because such a painting is easier to describe verbally. Questionnaire
results from the same participants confirmed that people did indeed find
it easier to come up with reasons for liking or disliking the
representational painting than the abstract one. However, because
people are not always aware of their preferences and of how these
preferences are formed, verbal descriptions do not necessarily reflect
one's true preferences in an accurate way. As pointed out by Yamada,
"Because it is difficult to determine the exact causes of their preferences,
a mere increase in the availability of their vocabulary may not result in
fuller descriptions of them. Instead, it is possible that acquiring more
relevant vocabulary could be a potential catalyst for generating a
confusing set of reasons."

Interestingly, half of the "verbalizers" in Yamada's study were asked to

provide reasons for not liking the paintings (rather than reasons for liking
them), and were asked to select the painting they disliked the most
(rather than the one they liked the most). How did this influence their
subsequent preferences? These participants were in fact more likely to
say that they disliked the representational piece. This may also be
explained in terms of ease of verbalization - it should be as easy to come
up with reasons for not liking a representational painting as it is to come
up with reasons for liking it.

It was concluced that "the figurative qualities of representational art help

people to verbalize their reasons, which could be potentially and
increasingly biased, and cause them to change their preferences in line
with these reasons".
Effects of verbalization on cognition and behaviour has been extensively
explored by Jonathan Schooler and colleagues within the literature on
so-called "verbal overshadowing". Verbal overshadowing refers to “the
phenomenon in which verbalisation negatively affects performance on a
task related to the verbalised material”, and the phenomenon has been
explored in a broad range of contexts and domains. The results of
Yamada's study are consistent with the results of a classic study
by Wilson and colleagues, where verbalization increased people's
tendency to select a humorous poster more often than an art poster, and
where verbalization was associated with lower reported satisfaction
about one's choice.

Chin and Schooler present three theoretical accounts of verbal

overshadowing effects. According to the content account, verbal
overshadowing is caused by aspects of the contents of verbalisation, for
example that the verbal description does not accurately reflect the
detailed properties of the perceptual experience being described. An
alternative explanation is that verbalization causes a processing shift,
from a more holistic and global processing style to a more analytical and
local processing style. The phenomenon may also be explained in terms
of a so-called criterion shift account, according to which verbalization
leads to more conservative responding. According to Chin and Schooler,
no single factor can account for all forms of verbal overshadowing - it is
perhaps more likely that different mechanisms operate under different
conditions.

Sensory impression is impressions that are given to engage one or more of the five senses,
sight, sound, touch, smell and taste.

Figurative language, on the other hand, is the use of words to intentionally move away from their
standard meaning. If I were to say, 'At the end of the play Caesar kicks the bucket,' I wouldn't mean
that Caesar had actually kicked a pail. I would mean that he died, because to 'kick the bucket' is a
type of figurative language that uses those words to mean something beyond the literal. Since
poetry's life blood is figurative language (notice my own use of figurative language), poetry can be
challenging for some readers. I'm going to show you some ways to make it easier.
When it comes to literary devices that fall into the category of figurative language, there are too
many to list in this lesson. You have some common ones, like metaphor, and some rarer ones, like
metonymy, but instead of examining each individual device, let's look at big categories. Some
figurative language offers comparisons, some uses expressions, and other figurative language
exaggerates or understates a writer's idea.

Examples of Figurative Language

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Figurative language refers to the color we use to amplify our writing. It takes an ordinary statement
and dresses it up in an evocative frock. It gently alludes to something without directly stating it.
Figurative language is a way to engage your readers, ushering them through your writing with a more
creative tone.
Although it's often debated how many "types" of figurative language there are, it's safe to say there
are at least five distinct categories. They are: metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole, and
symbolism.
In this article, we'll highlight the main branches of the tree, or "the big five." In truth, this is only
scratching the surface. There are waves of other literary devices that color our writing, including
alliteration, onomatopoeia, idioms, irony, oxymorons, puns, synecdoche, and more. As a starting
point, let's have some fun with the ones you're most likely to come across in your daily readings.

Picture This
It was a dark and stormy night. I sat alone in the old, dilapidated house staring out the window. The
sky was black, the wind was loud, and the rain slammed against the broken windowpane. I shut my
eyes, remembering my earlier visit, and I felt so embarrassed and angry. When I opened them, the
lightning bolt flashed and lit up the room once more. I had to get out of the house; I had to hide. No
one could know my horrible mistake. I opened the door, took a deep breath, and ran into the cold
and rain.
What feelings did you have while listening to the previous story? What made you feel this way?
What words did you hear that helped create this feeling? By answering these questions, you are on
your way to defining the mood and tone. Mood and tone are important because they help create the
meaning of a story.

What Is Mood?
Mood is the feeling you get while reading a story. This could be happiness, sadness, darkness,
anger, suspicion, loneliness, or even excitement. You can think of mood as the atmosphere of the
story.
To describe mood, you should think about the setting and the language used by the author. In the
opening story, we saw the setting as dark and the weather angry. The narrator used language that
created fear, such as cold and black.
The mood of a story can change how we identify the thesis and the characters. For example, if we
read a short story about a lovable nanny, we would expect positive words like cheerful, loving, and
caring. However, we could take that same idea of a nanny and make it more of a horror story by
changing the atmosphere with aggravated, cold, and enraged. We have the same character, but the
author's message and description is much different.

What Is Tone?
Tone is the author's attitude toward a subject. The tone can be identified by looking at word choices
and phrases. Take time to look at the language. An author uses words to create meaning. For
example, a dog described as a lovable puppy is positive, but one described as a fierce fighter is
more frightening.
You should also decide if a word is abstract, concrete, general, or specific. It is important to note if
an author is using a general word, like car, or a more specific word, like Ford Focus. An abstract
word is one that may carry different meanings, such as pleasant, while a concrete word will show
us the meaning.
Finally, look at the details of the story. Language is the first step to finding the tone, but the word
choice is just as important. Look how an author describes the setting, a character, or an event. This
description will help create the tone.
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