An Exploratory Study Of Interface Metaphor Comprehension

Orignially,metaphor is an important concept in Rhetoric,but its vital function was being taken seriously gradually from 1970s in 20 century,and it was seen as an important thinking method most human beings have,and it was also an important tool of human cognition.The concept of metaphor extends to all kinds of fields such as Cognitive Psychology,Computer Scicence,HCI(Human-Computer Interaction),and plays an important role in them.In Human-Computer Interaction,modern graphic user interface(GUI) adopts the technique of metaphor widely.Metaphor plays an important role in helping human understand computer function command,and facilitates users to master computer operation,and for that,it becomes a importand design idea and method in modern industrial design,but researchs about interface metaphor is not enough.The research probes into factors tha effect interface metaphor comprehension,what's more,it analysised the cognitive differences between the two cognitive subjects of metaphor understanding:the designers(subjects who had been trained in art design) and the users(subjects who are in other majors).The results of the research are as follows:1. In verbal-image dimension of cognitive style,the two are significantly different,subjects majored in art design are clearly biased in fovor of image type;as the subjects of other majors are slightly biased in fovor of verbal type.2. In the reaction time experiment,the conventionality and aptness effect the subject understanding signifficantly;the reaction time between subjects of different majors are signifficant,subjects who had been trained in art responded to metaphorical icons faster.3. In the written assessment test, there is no difference between subjects who had been trained in arts and who had not;but there is some difference between love of these icons,the subjects who had been trained in arts tend to like the icons less,and the tendency is signifficant on materials of low conventionality and high novelty.