Perceptual vs. conceptual similarities and creation of new features in visual metaphor

A number of empirical studies have demon-strated that certain metaphors can create new conceptual similarities between the source and the target. However, the mechanism of similarity creation has not been explained or modelled satis-factorily. In this paper, we present some empirical evidence in support of this hypothesis for visual metaphors and show how similarity judgements are different from metaphor process. We focus on visual metaphors because here the images corre-sponding to the source and the target are objec-tively present. Moreover, we use an algorithmic approach to establish perceptual similarity by using an image-based search system that deter-mines similarity based on low-level perceptual features like colour, shape, texture, etc. Results of this study shows a difference in similarity process and metaphor process, the number of newly cre-ated conceptual features also correlated strongly with the perceptual similarity between the pairs of images. Finally, an analysis of the eye-movement data shows that the perceptually similar regions of the images get increased attention during meta-phorical interpretation