This existing spatial representation, perhaps in the form of a motor or image schema, can then be mapped to the novel task in a way that may hone the existing representation.
This tendency might have influenced the emergence of metaphorical linguistics, thinking via image schema, an embodied pre-linguistic structure of experience that motivates conceptual metaphor mappings (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980a).
Previous research has shown the feasibility of using image schemas to evaluate intuitive interactions.
Lakoff and Johnson convincingly demonstrated that repeated bodily interactions of a similar kind lead to the formation of image schemas guiding our understanding of verbal expressions.
In this paper we argue that an object's abstract/figurative meaning is also embodied in that it is grounded in patterns of recurrent interactions with our environment, referred to as image schemas.
This paper extends previous research by proposing a method, which uses image schemas to evaluate usability by measuring the gap between design intention and users' interpretations of the design.
Scientific and technical terms were analysed from dictionaries, databases and research papers by selecting those with a metaphorical basis; then, they were classified according to the type of metaphor they embody, establishing the conceptual metaphors underlying the metaphorical expressions, and the image schemas involved in the visual metaphors.
On the basis of the spatial, relational structure of three such image schemas, two everyday products, a jug and an alarm clock, were systematically varied on form dimensions. Experiment 1 showed that participants with a background in design relate abstract characteristics to the form changes in the way predicted.
This is consistent with the notion that most females have developed "universal" body image schemas containing rudimentary thoughts and feelings about one's physical appearance [ 29].
Cognitive models of body image disturbance predict that females who possess detailed mental representations of their body image (called body image schemas) will demonstrate more automatic processing of body-related stimuli [e.g., [ 28, 29]].
Nevertheless, cognitive models of body image disturbance postulate that individuals with complex and highly integrated self-schemas containing thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about their body image, process appearance-related information differently to individuals who have less complex body image schemas [e.g., [ 28, 29]].
