Soft Pillows and the Near and Dear: Physical-to-Abstract Mappings with Image-Schematic Metaphors

For interaction designers who need systematic and universal guidelines on how to express abstract meaning via the physical and spatial means of tangible user interfaces, image-schematic metaphors have been shown to be a promising approach. Rooted in the embodied status of human cognition, image-schematic metaphors generate many candidates for population stereotypes of physical-to-abstract mappings. In an empirical study complementing earlier research 80 participants matched tangible objects with abstract keywords derived from 30 image-schematic metaphors of the image schemas UP-DOWN, FRONT-BACK, NEAR-FAR, HARD-SOFT, STRONG-WEAK and STRAIGHT-CROOKED. On average, 77% of the participants' responses were consistent with the metaphors, and 19 metaphors received agreement rates of at least 80% suggesting these to be valid population stereotypes. As agreement rates vary dependent on context and image schema instantiation, conclusions for further studies are drawn.