ABSTRACT
Gentner and Grudin (1985) undertook a review of a sample of theoretical contributions to the field published in Psychological Review between the years 1894 and 1975. From the 68 theoretical papers they reviewed, they were able to identify 265 distinct mental metaphors. They defined a mental metaphor as ‘a nonliteral comparison in which either the mind as a whole or some particular aspect of the mind (ideas, processes, etc.) is likened to or explained in terms of a nonliteral domain’ (p. 182). These metaphors were all introduced by their contributors as ways of understanding the field. They were often based on explicit comparisons, such as James’ ‘stream of consciousness’, but also were frequently based on subtly implied, extended comparisons only identifiable from broad sections of text. Gentner and Grudin identified four categories of analogy which characterised the period – spatial, animate-being, neural, and systems metaphors – and found clear trends in metaphor preference and rates of usage over time.
