System Metaphor is one of the key practices of Extreme Programming (XP). Unfortunately, the System Metaphor practice is poorly understood, and is the practice XP teams most commonly choose to ignore. In this paper, we provide a small collection of patterns that teams can use to develop metaphors for their systems, and for evaluating system metaphors. We hope these patterns will encourage Extrem...

In the standard version of conceptual metaphor theory, metaphors are stable connected structures in the conceptual system that emerge either because there is some similarity between two domains of experience (resemblance-based metaphors) or because the two domains are correlated in bodily experience (correlation-based metaphors). I propose that in addition to these two types of metaphor there i...

A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a subject is symbolic of another unrelated object. In the present study, we examined neural patterns associated with both novel unfamiliar and conventional familiar metaphoric processing, and how these patterns are modulated by affective valence. Prior to fMRI scanning, participants received a list of word pairs (novel unfamiliar metaphors as well as co...

OBJECTIVE It is not known how often physicians use metaphors and analogies, or whether they improve patients' perceptions of their physicians' ability to communicate effectively. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine whether the use of metaphors and analogies in difficult conversations is associated with better patient ratings of their physicians' communication skills. DESIG...

There has recently been growing interest in the role of metaphors in environmentalism and nature conservation. Metaphors not only structure how we perceive and think but also how we should act. The metaphor of nature as a book provokes a different attitude and kind of nature management than the metaphor of nature as a machine, an organism, or a network. This article explores four clusters of me...

A synesthetic metaphor (e.g., sweet touch) is a metaphor that results from a combination of a modifier and a head, where both express different perceptual qualities. Most of the existing studies examine how the acceptability of synesthetic metaphors can be explained by the pairing of adjective modifier’s and head noun’s modalities. However, little attention has been given to cognitive effects e...