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<p>Visual metaphors in advertising pose a cognitive paradox: they fuse disparate conceptual domains into a single image, thereby increasing neural and cognitive processing demands, yet they are typically experienced as fluent, pleasurable, and memorable. Drawing on Relevance Theory and the Elaboration Likelihood Model (<i>ELM</i>), we conceptualize visual metaphors as cognitive-affective “investments” whose returns depend on viewers’ involvement and on the type of metaphor employed. Across two experiments (<i>N</i> = 315 and <i>N</i> = 230), we test how advertisement type (metaphorical vs. literal), consumer involvement (high vs. low) and metaphor typology (functional vs. hedonic) jointly shape cognitive outcomes (attention, comprehension, memory) and affective outcomes (emotional resonance, brand attitude). In Experiment 1, metaphorical advertisements produced robust gains in attention, comprehension and emotional resonance relative to literal advertisements. Crucially, a moderated mediation analysis showed that metaphors improved brand attitudes via a cognitive pathway only under low involvement. Under high involvement, this incremental cognitive advantage was eliminated. We interpret this pattern through the lens of Relevance Theory: for highly involved viewers, the literal message may already yield near-maximal cognitive impact, potentially rendering the additional processing effort required by the metaphor redundant. This leads to what we term a cognitive ceiling effect. Experiment 2 further demonstrated pathway specificity: functional metaphors preferentially enhanced recall via relational mapping, whereas hedonic metaphors preferentially enhanced emotional resonance and brand favorability via attributional mapping. Taken together, these findings support a Dual-Pathway Interaction Model and a Cognitive-Affective Balance Design framework: under low involvement, metaphors act as affectively rewarding shortcuts for viewers engaging in heuristic satisficing, whereas under high involvement, functional metaphors are most effective when they deliver diagnostic information that aligns with viewers’available cognitive resources.</p>

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Investigating dual-pathway cognitive and affective processes in visual metaphor advertising: the roles of consumer involvement and metaphor type

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年3月30日

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  • Cun Shang,
  • Ying Xue,
  • Wenxiang Liu,
  • Guoqiang An

摘要

Visual metaphors in advertising pose a cognitive paradox: they fuse disparate conceptual domains into a single image, thereby increasing neural and cognitive processing demands, yet they are typically experienced as fluent, pleasurable, and memorable. Drawing on Relevance Theory and the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), we conceptualize visual metaphors as cognitive-affective “investments” whose returns depend on viewers’ involvement and on the type of metaphor employed. Across two experiments (N = 315 and N = 230), we test how advertisement type (metaphorical vs. literal), consumer involvement (high vs. low) and metaphor typology (functional vs. hedonic) jointly shape cognitive outcomes (attention, comprehension, memory) and affective outcomes (emotional resonance, brand attitude). In Experiment 1, metaphorical advertisements produced robust gains in attention, comprehension and emotional resonance relative to literal advertisements. Crucially, a moderated mediation analysis showed that metaphors improved brand attitudes via a cognitive pathway only under low involvement. Under high involvement, this incremental cognitive advantage was eliminated. We interpret this pattern through the lens of Relevance Theory: for highly involved viewers, the literal message may already yield near-maximal cognitive impact, potentially rendering the additional processing effort required by the metaphor redundant. This leads to what we term a cognitive ceiling effect. Experiment 2 further demonstrated pathway specificity: functional metaphors preferentially enhanced recall via relational mapping, whereas hedonic metaphors preferentially enhanced emotional resonance and brand favorability via attributional mapping. Taken together, these findings support a Dual-Pathway Interaction Model and a Cognitive-Affective Balance Design framework: under low involvement, metaphors act as affectively rewarding shortcuts for viewers engaging in heuristic satisficing, whereas under high involvement, functional metaphors are most effective when they deliver diagnostic information that aligns with viewers’available cognitive resources.