The effects of visual metaphor and cognitive style for mental modeling in a hypermedia-based environment

Abstract

With the exponential growth of Internet technology, the notion of users' cognition when navigating such a vast information space has gained prominence. Studies suggest that metaphors can serve as effective tools to scaffold users' mental modeling processes. However, how users conceive of the metaphorical aid (as opposed to simply how they perceive it) remains questionable. Cognitive style, or the user's preferred way of information processing, has thus been posited as a possible factor affecting the success of the metaphorical approach in a hypermedia environment.This study explores the effects of visual metaphors and cognitive styles on users' learning performances in terms of structural knowledge and feelings of disorientation. The results indicate that a visual metaphor could improve the quality of mental formation, yet simultaneously increase users' mental load during navigation. In addition, cognitive style is a crucial factor that can significantly affect users' learning performance.

Efficient electronic navigation: A metaphorical question?

“…Examples of research that provide some insight into this type of conceptual metaphors are studies by Lee (2007) and Hsu (2006). Lee compared learning from a home page construction course where the instructional material was presented either using a standard hyperlink interface, or a visual metaphorical interface (similar overall structure but based on a student dormitory building).…”

“…field dependence/independence). Lee (2007) examined both the wholist-analytic and the verbal-imagery dimensions (preference for textual or image presentation) and found significant effects of style when grouping under the four styles (wholist-verbalisers, wholist-imagers, analytic-verbalisers, and analyticimagers). However, these findings should be treated with caution due to the low reliability of both dimension scales (measured by the Cognitive Styles Analysis: CSA: Riding, 1991Riding, /1998 and the poor stability of grouping using style labels.…”

Interaction between prior knowledge and concept-map structure on hypertext comprehension, coherence of reading orders and disorientation

“…Unfortunately, only a few studies have investigated disorientation in comprehension or learning tasks with hypertexts (e.g. Lee, 2007), even if many authors argue that disorientation problems may explain outcomes (e.g. Mohageg, 1992;DeStefano and LeFevre, 2007).…”

A study of developing auditory icons for mobile phone service applications in taiwan region

“…By bridging from the known to MOBILE HCI 2013 -POSTERS AUGUST 29th, 2013 -MUNICH, GERMANY the unknown, metaphor highlights the structural commonalities to connect to ones' experience [2]. With structural metaphors embedded in graphical interface, it had been suggested by scholars that users can integrate abstract knowledge more easily [13].…”