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analogies being created between subject matters. That type of metaphorical creativity
is important, but so is the open-ended elaboration of an existing analogy without
extending it.
11.6 Conclusions and Final Remarks
This chapter has indicated how the ATT-Meta approach can handle, from an under-
stander's viewpoint, certain broad and important types of creativity in metaphor.
The chapter has concentrated on the case of open-ended pretended-scenario elabora-
tions. Even very creative elaborations and novel pairings work in important part by
engaging standard analogical parallels (view-specific or view-neutral), rather than
by extension of an existing analogy through the addition of new correspondence
rules. Elsewhere (Barnden [ 8 ], extending Lee and Barnden [ 33 ]) I have shown that
the ATT-Meta approach can handle a variety of ways in which metaphorical views
can be compounded (mixed). One, parallel, type of compounding involves mixing
of different subject matters within one pretence, or use of multiple pretences side by
side. Another, serial, type (i.e., chained metaphor) is handled by having pretences
nested within other pretences. This is all implemented in the ATT-Meta system.
The chapter has also mentioned a natural extension to metaphor generation, by
virtue of the reverse-transfer capability of ATT-Meta, which is a significant measure
for suitably enriching pretended scenarios even during understanding. Given the
open-endedness of the way in which pretended scenarios can be developed, the stage
is set for creative generation as well as understanding.
ATT-Meta's emphasis on the Anti-Analogy-Extension thesis is distinctive com-
pared to most other work on metaphor. Also, ATT-Meta's emphasis on the following
topics from the previous section is distinctive compared to conceptual-metaphor
theory: use of view-neutral correspondences as well as view-specific ones; oppor-
tunistic use of correspondences through guard satisfaction; intertwining of mapping
with other reasoning; non-reification of metaphorical views; rejection of a domain-
difference assumption; and reverse transfer. However, the emphasis on view-neutral
mapping resonates with the transfer of higher-order structure in Structure-Mapping
Theory (Gentner [ 22 ]) and owes a considerable debt to the AI work on metaphor by
Carbonell [ 12 ].
At a suitably high level the ATT-Meta approach bears some strong similarities
to those of Hobbs and Narayanan [ 26 , 39 ], and somewhat less so to the MIDAS
system of Martin [ 35 ]. The differences are explained in Barnden [ 5 ]. But the closest
point of contact with other work, and one very relevant to the topic of creativity,
is with Conceptual Integration theory, or Blending [ 19 ]. Reasoning within the pre-
tence is broadly like the elaboration of a blend space. The relationship to blending
is especially close because of something not yet mentioned: namely that a pretence
can opportunistically use information from the surrounding space, much as a fic-
tional story about, say, Sherlock Holmes can use real information about London.
A pretence can also blend different source subject matters together, as needed for
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