Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
concepts includes metaphors based on natural ob-
jects, metaphors related to the physical senses, and
conceptual metaphors that apply the known rules
or phenomena as a way of translation of abstract
concepts. Nature derived metaphors support data
visualization, information and knowledge visualiza-
tion, data mining, semantic web, and serve as the
enrichment of interdisciplinary models. The further
text examines examples of combining metaphori-
cal visualization with artistic principles, and then
describes metaphorical way of learning and teaching
with art and graphic metaphors aimed at improving
one's power of conveying meaning, integrating art
and science, and visualizing knowledge.
Metaphor reflects cognitive operations; it makes
us see one thing in terms of another and create
a new meaning. Metaphors are not true or false.
Thus, metaphors may involve mental models which
otherwise wouldn't be easily grasped. A metaphor
may indirectly suggest the meaning of something
that is not easily understood, and transfer it from
one thing to another without direct comparison,
with the use of 'like' or 'as'. For example, we say
'the tip of the iceberg' to imply a small, visible
part of a big problem; a symbol of 'heart' is a
metaphor. We use interface metaphors everyday
when we talk about online communication using
familiar objects for organizing the corresponding
elements related to the computer, a folder, files,
and many other metaphors.
Metaphors often address our basic experience,
for example, when our minds are conditioned by
habit to visualize quantity: 'more' as something
going up and 'less' as an object or a graph going
down (Lakoff & Núñez, 2001). With inspira-
tion coming from nature and/or mathematics,
realities created with the use of metaphors refer
to our imagination and experience based on
physiological reality of the mind. One may say,
the prevalent metaphorical imaging of abstract
concepts includes natural metaphors of living
organisms, often incorporating behavior such as
motion and gesture, metaphors based on natural
objects found in nature, visual, auditory, or other
metaphors related to the physical senses (often
in the use of symbols or icons), and conceptual
metaphors that apply the known rules, phenomena,
and mathematical ideas as a way of translation of
abstract concepts (Lakoff & Núñez, 2001).
Metaphorical artwork does not necessarily
present its content as representational depiction
showing the physical appearance of objects or
people. “The Swirl” (Figure 1) shows immaterial
concepts translated into an abstract image. Viewers
may want to create their own experience of the
dynamic physical processes, find a counterpart
in music, or think about the events occurring
in cosmos. Somewhere in a space between the
TRANSLATION OF MEANING WITH
VISUAL AND VERBAL METAPHORS
Few would challenge the assumption that people
think for the most part in pictures. Communication
proceeds with the use of language that is highly
metaphorical, and many hold that there is no non-
metaphorical thought. In many instances, art is
metaphorical. A recurrent theme throughout this
topic is visual communication and visualization
of ideas that is pictorial and linguistic at the same
time, in both cases being metaphorical. Visualiza-
tion has been generally seen as the presentation of
pictures showing easy to recognize objects that are
connected through some well-defined relations.
The effectiveness of making the concepts or data
comprehensible and visually appealing often de-
pends on choosing a metaphor that is suitable to
carry complex concepts and visual storytelling.
There is common agreement in opinion that a
metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or
phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used
to specify another, thus making an implied mental
comparison. Metaphor is a best known, persuasive
rhetoric figure used to increase the effectiveness of
a message, with an elaborate taxonomy of meta-
phorical tropes such as metonymy, simile, analogy,
synecdoche, thought maps, and concept maps.
