How Our Brain Understands Hyperbole
Hyperbole: How we know that $103 means $103 and $1,000 means a lot.
Mignon Fogarty
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How Our Brain Understands Hyperbole
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Ellen: Thanks for having me! Yes, I’m here to talk about how our brains recognize hyperbole. Because if you think about it, we seldom say what we mean. Ask me about holiday shopping and I might say it took forever to get a parking space at the mall. Or that it was worth it because I got the deal of the century. Taken literally, what I’m saying is completely untrue. But because our brains understand hyperbole, you immediately know what I mean.
In computer science, one of the holy grails is to teach machines to understand non-literal language like hyperbole. A computer that can understand Shakespeare is still a long way away, but a new study from the lab of Stanford psychology professor Dr. Noah Goodman gets us one step closer.
He and his students created a mathematical model of how people understand figurative language, specifically hyperbole in numbers.
Our brains do this easily, but how, exactly? When I tell my kids I used to walk fifteen miles in the snow uphill to school, they know I’m full of it. But how? How do our brains toggle between literal numbers and figurative numbers?
One thing he found is the importance of what he calls round versus sharp numbers.
So for instance, say I spot a coveted Frozen Snow Glow Elsa at a toy store. You ask me how much it costs and I say, “Oh my goodness, it was $43.” How much would you think it was?
Mignon: Probably $43.
Ellen: Right. But what if I said, “Oh my goodness, it was a thousand dollars.” How much would you think it costs then?
GG: Well, probably not a thousand, but really expensive.
Ellen: Right. So why would I say a thousand? Why wouldn’t I just say it was really expensive?
Mignon: Maybe for emphasis?
Ellen: Exactly. That, plus it conveys emotion—I’m a little bit outraged or flabbergasted. And it implies an opinion—not just that it’s really expensive, but that it’s overpriced. And finally, it’s a more familiar way of addressing each other so it builds or affirms the fact that we’re buddies.
And I’ll bet your brain intuited all this automatically. You knew I was being literal when I said $43 and that I was using hyperbole when I said $1000. That’s due to what’s called the pragmatic halo effect, which the paper describes this way: “Pragmatic halo refers to people’s tendency to interpret round numbers such as 100 imprecisely and sharp numbers such as 103 precisely.”
And whether we use a round or sharp number depends on our goals. If precision is our biggest communication goal, we’re more likely to use a sharp number. But if our goal is to convey emotion and emphasis, we’re more likely to use round numbers.
In short, we communicate in order to maximize our effectiveness. Like the pragmatic halo effect’s name implies, we’re pragmatic.
And how exactly this lab created a mathematical formula out of this is beyond this episode—I’ll pass that one over to Math Dude, but we’re getting closer to understanding how our brains decide what numbers are literal and which are figurative.
Mignon: Thanks so much for coming on the show!
Ellen: Thanks so much for having me! May a thousand of your holiday wishes come true!
About the Author
Mignon Fogarty is the founder of Quick and Dirty Tips and the author of seven books on language, including the New York Times bestseller “Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.” She is an inductee in the Podcasting Hall of Fame, and the show is a five-time winner of Best Education Podcast in the Podcast Awards. She has appeared as a guest expert on the Oprah Winfrey Show and the Today Show. Her popular LinkedIn Learning courses help people write better to communicate better.