The articles in this special issue focus on experimental psychological, neuropsychological, and computer-based approaches to figurative language, suggesting the enormous impact of cognitive science on our understanding of figurative language. Where, exactly, does figurative language fit in the larger scheme of things? The basic thesis is that much of intelligent behavior partakes of indirectness -- layeredness, levels, embeddedness, and tangled hierarchies. Deficiencies in this respect, brought about by inabilities to build processing structures by using prior or old information, result in a...