Processing visual metaphors in advertising: an exploratory study of cognitive abilities

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the role of visual working memory capacity for visual metaphor processing in advertising. First, participants were successively shown 82 visual metaphors and were asked to indicate whether they were a fusion or a replacement while performing a visual structure decision task. Second, in a verbalisation task, participants were invited to orally interpret the same 82 visual metaphors. Verbalisations were analyzed through three semiotic dimensions: expression, conceptualisation, and communication. Results showed that in the first task, metaphor type had a limited effect, while the difference in visual working memory capacity was close to significance. In the second task, fusions elicited more verbalisations in the expression dimension and had faster verbalisation times than replacements. Furthermore, verbalisation times were faster for high visual working memory participants. These findings are discussed in relation to the visual metaphor literature, and research perspectives are provided to empirically explore visual metaphor processing.