With the advent of diffusion-based image generation models such as DALL-E, Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, high quality images can be easily generated using textual inputs. It is unclear, however, to what extent the generated images resemble human mental representations, especially regarding abstract event knowledge. We analyse the capability of four state-of-the-art models in generating images of verb-object event pairs when we systematically manipulate the degrees of abstractness of both the verbs and the object nouns. Human judgements assess the generated images and demonstrate that DALL-E is strongest for event pairs with concrete nouns (e.g., “pour water”; “believe person”), while Midjourney is preferred for event pairs with abstract nouns (e.g., “raise awareness”; “remain mystery”), irrespective of the concreteness of the verb. Across models, humans were most unsatisfied with images of events pairs that combined concrete verbs with abstract direct-object nouns (e.g., “speak truth”), and an additional ad-hoc annotation contributes this to its potential for figurative language.

Metaphors are creative cognitive constructs that are employed in everyday conversation to describe abstract concepts and feelings. Prevalent conceptual metaphors such as WAR, MONSTER, and DARKNESS in COVID-19 online discourse sparked a multi-faceted debate over their efficacy in communication, resultant psychological impact on listeners, and their appropriateness in social discourse. In this work, we investigate metaphors used in discussions around COVID-19 on Indian Twitter. We observe subtle transitions in metaphorical mappings as the pandemic progressed. Our experiments, however, didn’t indicate any affective impact of WAR metaphors on the COVID-19 discourse.