Metaphor's role in the information behavior of humans interacting with computers.(Report)

Metaphors convey information, communicate abstractions, and help us understand new concepts. While the nascent field of information behavior (IB) has adopted common metaphors like "berry-picking" and "gap-bridging" for its models, the study of how people use metaphors is only now emerging in the subfield of human information organizing behavior (HIOB). Metaphors have been adopted in human-computer interaction (HCI) to facilitate the dialogue between user and system. Exploration of the literature on metaphors in the fields of linguistics and cognitive science as well as an examination of the history of use of metaphors in HCI as a case study of metaphor usage offers insight into the role of metaphor in human information behavior.

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Our world is growing increasingly digital; our entire lives--our interactions, our entertainment, even our personal memories--are mediated by technology. Humans have had thousands of years to learn to communicate with each other, largely employing metaphors and analogies to negotiate meaning. Our experience communicating with computers is both nascent yet broadening every day with increasing dependency. We must fully understand the role that metaphors play in the exchange of information to facilitate the communication between humans and computers.

* Metaphors: a definition

Originally regarded as rhetorical devices, Plato abhorred the use of metaphors, arguing that they could convince a man to do the illogical. Schon explains that at that time metaphors were considered a "kind of anomaly of language, one which must be dispelled in order to clear the path for a general theory of reference or meaning." (1) Aristotle, on the other hand, saw that they provided insight into the items of comparison. "Ordinary words convey only what we know already; it is from metaphor that we can best get hold of something new." (2)

Traditionally the objects in the equation have been called the tenor and the vehicle, but more recently they are referred to as the target and source domains. In the metaphor, "Alex is a space cadet," Alex is the tenor or target domain (the abstract or undefined), and space cadet represents the vehicle or source domain (the known). If "the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one thing in terms of another," then the vehicle or the source domain is responsible for elucidating the tenor or target domain. (3) One measures the relationship between these domains, the tenor and the vehicle, with "ground" and "tension." Ground concerns the similarities between the domains and tension represents the dissimilarities. (4)

Metaphors have been studied from multiple perspectives: from the creative use of metaphors in literature to the comprehension or appreciation of metaphors. (5) The research from other disciplines can offer insight into the effect of metaphors on human information behavior. I will first discuss the use of metaphors in language and then review some of the theories on how they work.