On Personification and the Power of Metaphor
by Eric Robinson · 06/28/2007 (3:25 am) · 3 comments
Note: I have a personal blog for friends and family that occupies a lot of my free time. I haven't been keeping a .plan here because I spend so much time keeping the other blog up to date. Recently, though, I've started looking over some of my posts and found that some may be interesting to certain people in the GG Community. I'm considering writing more in this space. We'll see how it goes, I guess. 'Markup Lite' is a pain to use compared to other blogging software's built-in RTEs. /Note
---------------- [Originally posted January 4th, 2007] ----------------
I've done a lot of thinking on this subject recently. I intend on using the results of my thought experiments for the betterment of the games I design. A lot of this has arisen as a result of having digested the first few chapters of Chris Crawford's "On Interactive Storytelling". Mr. Crawford spends a hell of a lot of time and energy separating Interactive Storytelling from Interactivity in Storied Games. In doing so he touches on several topics related to narrative/storytelling, learning, and the human brain.
I had an epiphany of sorts while on the can. (This is starting to become a recurring theme in my life.) I had finished reading a section of my bathroom reading, Lisa Randall's Warped Passages, and realized that I had a hard time distinguishing between Standard Model subatomic particles through names alone. I considered writing up a table that listed their names and attributes for organizational purposes to make things easier to understand and recall. This led me to consider making a sort of DHTML version of the table where you could show/hide attributes to work your memory. That led me to consider making little cartoon characters for each of the particles and giving them each a personality of their own. Hell, you could make comic characters out of them. That got me to really thinking.
Why is it that metaphor is such a powerful utility? Specifically, why do we personify almost everything? I posit that metaphor is one of the most tried-and-true, powerful teaching tools known to man. From what I understand of things, this is due to how the brain stores information.
Apparently the brain uses an associative method of storing memories, facts, systems, etc. It makes a kind of net for each memory. This net's 'shape' defines that memory. Note that I'm using metaphor here to describe my understanding of this biological system! When I reference this "net" you will recall a sizable chunk of information about nets. You will probably have a mental image associated with them. If you are computer inclined then you may have thought, even tangentially, about computer net[work]s. The idea is that I'm leveraging your brain's net to get my idea across faster. When you store the information I'm telling you here, it will have been influenced by all of that data you recalled and you must fit it into place with what you already know about the brain (neural networks and other shenanigans). Chris Crawford goes into detail about this whole process. It's really quite fascinating. He explains those "A-HA!" moments you get when something finally snaps into place and becomes so clear that it propels your understanding of even tangentially associated to what you finally came to understand.
And you know? Perhaps "web" would have made for a better metaphor... hmm....
Either way, metaphor is a short-cut for teaching. Certainly it can be effectively leveraged in arguments but that is simply another way of teaching. And of course you need to be careful! Throughout my higher education, teachers would make metaphors in class and I would question them thoroughly using their metaphors as the basis for the question: I would test the limits of the metaphor; cull away the inapplicable thoughts that bubbled up when my memory began regurgitating. To be sure: you must exercise caution when using metaphors to teach.
When you really think about it, single words are in fact metaphors that we use to communicate ideas, desires, etc (this is particularly simple to see when it comes to nouns). Learn a new word and you'll have a very hazy idea of what it means, when it can be used, etc. Experience it more and more and you associate that word more closely with an idea in your mind. Learning an entire new language can help give insight into this. I believe I've mentioned this before but did you know that there's no word in Japanese that is strictly limited to the speaker like "I" in English? At first, you may try to take the generally equivalent word (there are many, actually), watashi, and use it in place of I; translate one-to-one. Taken strictly, this can lead you to some very confusing conversations. The Japanese have a reverse issue... particularly with the use of "my" (the word for "my" and "your" is the same word in Japanese - not a homonym... it's the same exact word, used in both places).
So then what of personification? Personification is a special type of metaphor. Personification is metaphor that leverages the human condition. Take, for instance, the movie Ice Age. This is one of my favorite animated movies. But look at the setup: a sloth, a mammoth, and a sabertooth tiger team up to return a human baby to its parents. What!? No! The tiger eats the baby, the mammoth skewers the tiger with its tusks and promptly falls into a tar pit, and the sloth poops a little and plays with it. There is no return of the baby. No great adventure. That's not reality. That's also not the point. The point is the interactions - the very human interactions. The point is the lessons involved. One of which is that overcoming differences and working together can help you get through seemingly impossible odds. The beauty of using animals is that we can attribute what we want to them without carrying a ton of extra baggage! (Sloths also present a ton of slapstick comedy opportunities.) Certainly we expect the sabertooth tiger to be very interested in the baby and sloth. And he is initially. Insert human emotions/reasoning and suddenly a relatable dimension appears. We wipe away 90% of the preconceptions we have about the animal side of things and suddenly focus on the one or two human aspects injected into his character. Simplified, we can more easily digest the lesson (fitting it into our brain's 'nets') and then sit back and enjoy all the pretty eye candy and situational humor. And the sloth's voice... damn that was a great performance.
In the end, personification and metaphor boil down to the human condition. They are teaching tools. Incredibly effective ones, at that! They simply make difficult things really easy to understand. You may react to this by saying "Duh, I was basically told the same thing in Junior High." I was too. But I didn't realize how particularly important it was to storytelling and, through that, us until a few days ago. Since then it's given me a new outlook on creativity.
Here's some fun facts that are tangentially related:
* Apparently the brain uses facial recognition systems when reading Chinese Characters. I can actually feel this at work, to tell you the truth. Glance at a kanji out of context and you'll say "Oh, isn't that...?" It's very similar to glancing at someone on the street and saying "Wow, wasn't that just...?" Of course, the more you hang out with certain characters, the more readily you can recall their name[s - because the Japanese simply couldn't be content with one reading per kanji]. I actually plan on expanding upon this idea for use with my game: I would like to see if I can't appeal to the facial recognition system of the brain directly. Anyone want to bet that personification would help with this effort?!
* Personally I feel that Tetris has made me better at packing. Work out the brain's spacial reasoning systems. Woohoo!
Oh, and by the way, anyone have any visual ideas for a comic character named Gluon?
---------------- [Originally posted January 4th, 2007] ----------------
I've done a lot of thinking on this subject recently. I intend on using the results of my thought experiments for the betterment of the games I design. A lot of this has arisen as a result of having digested the first few chapters of Chris Crawford's "On Interactive Storytelling". Mr. Crawford spends a hell of a lot of time and energy separating Interactive Storytelling from Interactivity in Storied Games. In doing so he touches on several topics related to narrative/storytelling, learning, and the human brain.
I had an epiphany of sorts while on the can. (This is starting to become a recurring theme in my life.) I had finished reading a section of my bathroom reading, Lisa Randall's Warped Passages, and realized that I had a hard time distinguishing between Standard Model subatomic particles through names alone. I considered writing up a table that listed their names and attributes for organizational purposes to make things easier to understand and recall. This led me to consider making a sort of DHTML version of the table where you could show/hide attributes to work your memory. That led me to consider making little cartoon characters for each of the particles and giving them each a personality of their own. Hell, you could make comic characters out of them. That got me to really thinking.
Why is it that metaphor is such a powerful utility? Specifically, why do we personify almost everything? I posit that metaphor is one of the most tried-and-true, powerful teaching tools known to man. From what I understand of things, this is due to how the brain stores information.
Apparently the brain uses an associative method of storing memories, facts, systems, etc. It makes a kind of net for each memory. This net's 'shape' defines that memory. Note that I'm using metaphor here to describe my understanding of this biological system! When I reference this "net" you will recall a sizable chunk of information about nets. You will probably have a mental image associated with them. If you are computer inclined then you may have thought, even tangentially, about computer net[work]s. The idea is that I'm leveraging your brain's net to get my idea across faster. When you store the information I'm telling you here, it will have been influenced by all of that data you recalled and you must fit it into place with what you already know about the brain (neural networks and other shenanigans). Chris Crawford goes into detail about this whole process. It's really quite fascinating. He explains those "A-HA!" moments you get when something finally snaps into place and becomes so clear that it propels your understanding of even tangentially associated to what you finally came to understand.
And you know? Perhaps "web" would have made for a better metaphor... hmm....
Either way, metaphor is a short-cut for teaching. Certainly it can be effectively leveraged in arguments but that is simply another way of teaching. And of course you need to be careful! Throughout my higher education, teachers would make metaphors in class and I would question them thoroughly using their metaphors as the basis for the question: I would test the limits of the metaphor; cull away the inapplicable thoughts that bubbled up when my memory began regurgitating. To be sure: you must exercise caution when using metaphors to teach.
When you really think about it, single words are in fact metaphors that we use to communicate ideas, desires, etc (this is particularly simple to see when it comes to nouns). Learn a new word and you'll have a very hazy idea of what it means, when it can be used, etc. Experience it more and more and you associate that word more closely with an idea in your mind. Learning an entire new language can help give insight into this. I believe I've mentioned this before but did you know that there's no word in Japanese that is strictly limited to the speaker like "I" in English? At first, you may try to take the generally equivalent word (there are many, actually), watashi, and use it in place of I; translate one-to-one. Taken strictly, this can lead you to some very confusing conversations. The Japanese have a reverse issue... particularly with the use of "my" (the word for "my" and "your" is the same word in Japanese - not a homonym... it's the same exact word, used in both places).
So then what of personification? Personification is a special type of metaphor. Personification is metaphor that leverages the human condition. Take, for instance, the movie Ice Age. This is one of my favorite animated movies. But look at the setup: a sloth, a mammoth, and a sabertooth tiger team up to return a human baby to its parents. What!? No! The tiger eats the baby, the mammoth skewers the tiger with its tusks and promptly falls into a tar pit, and the sloth poops a little and plays with it. There is no return of the baby. No great adventure. That's not reality. That's also not the point. The point is the interactions - the very human interactions. The point is the lessons involved. One of which is that overcoming differences and working together can help you get through seemingly impossible odds. The beauty of using animals is that we can attribute what we want to them without carrying a ton of extra baggage! (Sloths also present a ton of slapstick comedy opportunities.) Certainly we expect the sabertooth tiger to be very interested in the baby and sloth. And he is initially. Insert human emotions/reasoning and suddenly a relatable dimension appears. We wipe away 90% of the preconceptions we have about the animal side of things and suddenly focus on the one or two human aspects injected into his character. Simplified, we can more easily digest the lesson (fitting it into our brain's 'nets') and then sit back and enjoy all the pretty eye candy and situational humor. And the sloth's voice... damn that was a great performance.
In the end, personification and metaphor boil down to the human condition. They are teaching tools. Incredibly effective ones, at that! They simply make difficult things really easy to understand. You may react to this by saying "Duh, I was basically told the same thing in Junior High." I was too. But I didn't realize how particularly important it was to storytelling and, through that, us until a few days ago. Since then it's given me a new outlook on creativity.
Here's some fun facts that are tangentially related:
* Apparently the brain uses facial recognition systems when reading Chinese Characters. I can actually feel this at work, to tell you the truth. Glance at a kanji out of context and you'll say "Oh, isn't that...?" It's very similar to glancing at someone on the street and saying "Wow, wasn't that just...?" Of course, the more you hang out with certain characters, the more readily you can recall their name[s - because the Japanese simply couldn't be content with one reading per kanji]. I actually plan on expanding upon this idea for use with my game: I would like to see if I can't appeal to the facial recognition system of the brain directly. Anyone want to bet that personification would help with this effort?!
* Personally I feel that Tetris has made me better at packing. Work out the brain's spacial reasoning systems. Woohoo!
Oh, and by the way, anyone have any visual ideas for a comic character named Gluon?
#2
06/28/2007 (1:35 pm)
Wonderful blog post -- thanks!
#3
I would add that he might sport a shirt with an Elmer's Glue-esque bottle in silhouette on the front (as the name was taken from standard 'glue' after all. Heh).
@Clint: I'm glad you enjoyed it. I've got another one or two that I'm going to move over from the blog. The next one I plan on moving over is long but applies very specifically to gameplay.
While it's not overtly stated I intended this entry to be applicable to game design. I kept it general as the audience consisted of family/friends who may not find the connection to games quite as interesting. The whole emphasis on "teaching" was enough, I felt, to at least hint at its applicability. (Raph Koster's Theory of Fun for Game Design is a terribly entertaining and educational read and does an excellent job of pointing out the connection between learning and fun.)
To be sure, the next .plan I put up will be specific to games: Fundamental Flaws in Game Design.
06/29/2007 (6:00 am)
@Aaron: That's awesome. Seriously. Why can't physics text books utilize something like that? Colored balls surrounded by arrows are virtually meaningless. Certainly they are an abstraction, but without a caption a lot of the images found in such resources are incomprehensible. Making a character like what you outlined gives the object personality and visually identifiable traits. I like the idea of having the eyes snap back and forth, too. Not only does that make it cartoony and thus approachable but it has grounds in the theory. Nice!I would add that he might sport a shirt with an Elmer's Glue-esque bottle in silhouette on the front (as the name was taken from standard 'glue' after all. Heh).
@Clint: I'm glad you enjoyed it. I've got another one or two that I'm going to move over from the blog. The next one I plan on moving over is long but applies very specifically to gameplay.
While it's not overtly stated I intended this entry to be applicable to game design. I kept it general as the audience consisted of family/friends who may not find the connection to games quite as interesting. The whole emphasis on "teaching" was enough, I felt, to at least hint at its applicability. (Raph Koster's Theory of Fun for Game Design is a terribly entertaining and educational read and does an excellent job of pointing out the connection between learning and fun.)
To be sure, the next .plan I put up will be specific to games: Fundamental Flaws in Game Design.
Torque 3D Owner Aaron E
Ok. I'll give the gluon characterization a try. Warning: I'm clueless about physics. Here goes . . .
Gluon
Presentation: Spherical-bodied cartoon guy who is surrounded by a bubble-like hadron barrier which is formed from thousands of tiny spheres (particles). Our gluon is cursed to constantly spin on his head-to-foot axis. His eyes extend from his head in short, stubby stalks that have just enough flexibility to resist his body spin and stay focused on whatever he's looking at (up to a point). His eyes rapidly snap back, just before his body completes each full rotation -- with a bit of jarring and the need to re-focus on what he's looking at. Normally the gluon is unseen, as his confinement within the hadron barrier completely obscures his physicality. Special technology is needed to show the gluon in his natural environment.
Abilities: The gluon is capable of exerting strong push-pull forces onto other particles (primarily quarks). Unfortunately, his range of influence is hindered greatly by his hadron barrier -- the particles of which absorb much of the energy. Therefore, he must get very close to his 'target' to exert any significant forces upon it. Each use of his ability creates a very noticable effect on the individual particles that make up his hadron barrier. These particle interactions make the barrier appear to bulge or dip, depending on the direction of forces the gluon is exerting.
p.s. One more thing. At the moment the gluon uses his push/pull abilities, he appears to go into a Matrix/Trinity/Neo - styled slowmotion sequence that minimizes the distracting body rotation effect and maximizes his hand gestures of the force exertion.