Art and metaphor both seem unnecessary for survival yet are unlikely to be spandrels given their ubiquity and apparent value. We discuss how art and metaphor play a similar, important role in cognition. Specifically, both are communications that are neither true nor false and so convey information by drawing attention to a limited isomorphism between target and source, a relationship that allows for ambiguity because it is assessed by “goodness of fit.” This combination of features means that art and metaphor require and, in turn, tune domain-general capacities for counterfactual reasoning and pattern detection.

中文翻译：

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艺术就是隐喻

艺术和隐喻对于生存来说似乎都是不必要的，但鉴于它们的普遍性和明显的价值，它们不太可能被击中。我们讨论艺术和隐喻如何在认知中扮演相似的重要角色。具体来说，两者都是既不是真实的也不是虚假的通信，因此通过吸引人们注意目标和源之间有限的同构来传达信息，这种关系允许模棱两可，因为它通过“拟合优度”进行评估。功能的这种组合意味着艺术和隐喻需要并反过来调整领域一般的能力以进行反事实推理和模式检测。