Visual metaphors use images to suggest analogies or make statements. While Western culture primarily uses verbal metaphors, non-Western cultures and even Western culture are beginning to understand the power of visual metaphors. They can be used to organize knowledge and express ideas. Visual metaphors must be built with familiar symbols and objects, and not be overly complex. They can be used as a teaching resource, combining visual and verbal information to address different learning styles.
A visual metaphor is an image used in place of or in combination with another to suggest an analogy between images or make a statement about them. In Western culture, metaphors are generally considered verbal. In other cultures where tradition is oral rather than written, metaphors may be primarily visual and are interpreted differently. Even in Western culture we are beginning to understand that metaphors can be extended from the verbal to the visual realm. Both verbal and visual metaphors are a way of organizing knowledge and understanding and can be used to express ideas.
A metaphor is usually defined as a figure of speech in which a word or phrase expressing one type of idea is used in place of another to express an idea or analogy. For example, “Love is an ocean.” By definition, metaphor excludes visual content by referring only to words and phrases. The concept of metaphor can, however, be used in visual terms. For example, a visual metaphor composed of a clock enclosed within a dollar sign can visually express the verbal metaphor “time is money.
Non-Western oral cultures such as those of the Native Americans always used non-verbal metaphors, both for communication and for the education of young people. Occasionally, Western cultures use visual metaphors alongside verbal metaphors to understand complex ideas. Most people are familiar with the scientific metaphor learned in school that “the atom is a tiny solar system” expressed visually by an image of its nucleus orbited by electrons and protons.
A visual metaphor can be thought of as structured within a visual space. It usually has to be built with familiar symbols and objects. To be effective it cannot be overly complex. Like a verbal metaphor, it will break if there are too many analogies to process at once. However, there must be enough detail for the metaphor to be recognizable and easily understood.
Some learning theories propose that the brain converts verbal information into visual images, which are then used to encode the information and store it. The visual image acts in a sense as a retrieval system for saved verbal information. The use of text to support a visual metaphor is increasingly used as a teaching resource. This combination of visual and verbal information has been found to increase the value of the metaphor, while also addressing different learning styles, such as that of visual thinkers.
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