When comprehending a metaphorical phrase such as "some parents are dynamite", how does one get to the intended meaning? A prevailing idea exists that metaphors utilize different comprehension processes than literal sentences to find the intended meaning. However, there is no conclusive theory of how metaphors are comprehended, and how metaphor comprehension differs from literal comprehension. The most investigated theories try to explain differences in the comprehension of metaphor by either postulating (1) special metaphor processes or (2) theories of similarity that make special allowances for metaphorical processes. These theories are predicated on the intuition that metaphors are comprehended differently than literals. It is shown that previous evidence for these differences is suspect. And, that simple metaphorical comparisons do not take longer to comprehend than literal comparisons. Though overall reaction times in the sentence verification task do not take longer, differences in comprehension may still exist at a finer grain of investigation. Comprehension processes were investigated using a speed-accuracy decomposition method (Kounios, Osman, & Meyer, 1987) which allows a finer look at comprehension processes. The findings support that (1) differences found in previous research are most likely the result of not controlling for subject-predicate similarity and (2) there appear to be early processing differences in the comprehension of metaphors and literals. However, a full understanding of metaphor comprehension processes cannot exist without attacking the problem with a broader experimental approach than in the past. (Dissertation Abstracts)